021 529 517 5 • 



P16 



60th Congress, ) SENATE. J Document 

1st Session. j ( No. 530. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Dick presented the following 

ADDRESSES BY MR. TRUMAN G. PALMER, SECRETARY OF THE 
AMERICAN BEET SUGAR ASSOCIATION, UPON THE PROGRESS 
OF THE INDUSTRY, ITS ECONOMIC VALUE TO THE NATION, ITS 
SPECIAL IMPORTANCE TO ARID AMERICA, AND THE LEGISLA- 
TION WHICH THREATENS ITS DESTRUCTION. 



May 29, 1908.— Ordered to be printed. 



The thirteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial 
Congress, one of the most important organizations of the kind in the 
United States, was held at St. Paul, August 19-22. 

The congress is non-political and aims to represent and forward 
all the material interests of that vast territory which lays west of 
the Mississippi River. The beet-sugar interests were ably presented 
by Mr. Truman G. Palmer, of Chicago, the well-known beet-sugar 
authority, writer, and statistician, who was a delegate of the Los 
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and made the trip from Washington 
to St. Paul for that purpose. 

Below we give Mr. Palmer's address in full, and we must say that 
it touches more important phases of the subject and gives a clearer 
and more comprehensive idea of the industry and its importance to 
American agriculture than any single paper we have yet seen. 

THE AMERICAN- S3ET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 

[Address before the thirteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- 
gress, held at St. Paul, Minn., August 19-22, 1902.] 

The development of the manufacture of sugar from beet roots is 
one of the marvels of the nineteenth century, and represents an in- 
vestment in factories alone, mostly in Europe, of between six and 
seven hundred million dollars. 



61,01. 



2 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

To consider the beet-sugar industry intelligently, a word should be 
said concerning- the history of cane sugar, the production of which 
supplied the world's markets for centuries before it was known that 
sugar could be produced, commercially, from beet roots. 

CANE SUGAR. 

The original habitat of sugar cane is unknown, but is supposed to 
be in the country extending from Cochin China to Bengal. 

The art of boiling sugar is mentioned as early as the seventh cen- 
tury, the art of refining was discovered in the fourteenth century, 
Venice became the great European center of the sugar trade in the 
fifteenth century, and during that century a Venetian received a re- 
ward of 100,000 crowns ($111,940) for the invention of the process 
of making loaf sugar. 

One of the earliest references to sugar in Great Britain is that of 
50 tons being shipped to London in 1319, to be exchanged by a mer- 
chant for wool. At that time sugar sold for 43 cents per pound, 
and continued to be used only as a luxury and for medicinal purposes 
until the eighteenth century. 

HISTORY or BEET SUGAR IN EUROPE. 

After the fall of the Koman Empire, the barbarians took to 
Bohemia a so-called beet root, containing a few saccharine elements, 
but not enough to attract attention at that period. 

The beet root is not mentioned again until 1705. when Oliver De 
Serre discovered that alcohol could be obtained from the fermenta- 
tion, which convinced him that sugar existed therein. 

In 1747 the Prussian chemist, Mai^graf, director of the physical 
classes in the Academj^ of Science at Berlin, obtained sugar from the 
common beet root, possessing all the properties known to exist in 
cane sugar. 

In 1801 Franz Carl Achard, the pupil and successor of Marggraf, 
erected at Cunern, Silesia, the first beet-sugar factory in the world. 

During the Napoleonic wars, when the British blockade deprived 
France of sugar, and the price had risen to $1 per pound. Napoleon 
appropriated 1,000,000 francs ($200,000) with which to experiment 
with beet roots. 

In 1810 the first French factory was erected at Lille, and produced 
sugar at a cost of 30 cents per pound, the beets at that time averaging 
but 6 per cent of sugar. 

Encouraged by Napoleon and by Frederick the Great, the industry 
gradually assumed commercial proportions, and from 1822 to 1825 
over 100 factories were erected, while by 1830 nearly all the European 
countries were taking an active interest in the industry. 

By systematic, fostering legislation Europe has secured the invest- 
ment of $630,000,000 in an industry which annually distributes over 
$200,000,000 to its farmers and $100,000,000 to other home interests. 

Based on the average price which the United States has paid for- 
eign countries for refined sugar during the past eleven years (0.0315 
cent per pound), the beet sugar producing countries of Europe keep 
at home $213,587,000 which they would otherwise send to the Tropics 
for the 3,076,000 metric tons of sugar which these countries now 
annually consume. 

AUG 1 1908 



<K. THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 3 

^ But for the establishment in Europe of this great industry, which 

^ now produces two-thirds of the world's supply of sugar, the present 

^ price of that commodity would undoubtedly be more than double 

what it is, and Europe's importations would be costing her nearly 

$500,000,000 a year. 

In addition to making this enormous reduction on her importa- 
tion of foodstuffs, and the consequent distribution of this money 
among European farmers, manufacturers, and miners, the surplus 
sugar product which she sells abroad, largely to England and the 
United States, annually refills her treasuries to the extent of $150,- 
000,000 to $200,000,000 in gold. Were it not for this industry the 
great countries of Europe would be more than bankrupted to-day. 

In 1840, thirty-nine years subsequent to the erection of the first 
beet-sugar factory, the total world's production of cane sugar was 
1,100,000 tons and of beet sugar 50,000 tons, beet sugar forming 4.35 
per cent of the total world's production. 

In 1900 the total world's production of cane sugar was 2,867,041 
tons and of beet sugar 5,607,944 tons, beet sugar forming 66.17 per 
cent of the total world's production, an increase of 11,100 per cent in 
sixty years. 

The transference of the sugar industry from the Tropics to the 
temperate zone is largely due to five causes : 

First. Intelligent, fostering legislation for the home beet-sugar 
industry by nations within the temperate zone. 

Second. Scientific culture of beet roots, which has more than 
doubled the sugar content therein. 

Third. Failure of science to perceptibly increase the sugar content 
of cane. 

Fourth. Abolition of slave labor in the Tropics. 

Fifth. The habitat of the sugar beet being in the most highly civ- 
ilized portions of the world, has brought to its manufacture the con- 
centration of the highest scientific investigation and achievement. 

Each of the following fifteen European countries produces all the 
sugar that its people consume, and all but four are exporters of sugar : 
Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Russia, Belgium, Holland, 
Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden. Denmark, Roumania, Bulgaria, and 
Servia. 

The above countries have a combined population of over 330,000,000 
people, their total sugar product from 1,511 factories is 5,926,980 
tons, of which 3,076,000 tons are consumed at home and 2,850,980 
tons are exported. 

The non-sugar producing European countries are the free trade 
British islands, mountainous Switzerland, and the nonprogressive 
States of Portugal, Greece, and Turkey. 

As we must pattern after one class or the other, the question natur- 
ally arises as to which class it is wise for us to follow, from a purely 
economical standpoint. 

Experts of both Europe and America agree that the sugar beet 
area of the United States is many times greater than is that of all 
Europe, and that it is but a question of a very short time when we 
will be able to produce sugar as cheaply or cheaper than it is being 
produced in any beet sugar country in the world. 

What the beet sugar industry means to Europe can be seen at a 
glance. 



4 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

United States Census Bulletin No. 59 for the year 1899, shows 
that per each ton of daily beet capacity, the investment in American 
beet sugar factories is $1,097,000. In the following estimate the in- 
vestment of European factories is figured at $1,000 per ton of daily 
capacity. The average acreage yield is placed at 10 tons, the cost 
of beets at $4 per ton, the " factory expense " at $2 per ton, and the 
extraction of sugar at 12 per cent. 

Number of factories 1, 511 

Capital invested $625, 000, 000 

Tons of beets woi-ked annually 51,598,400 

Acres cultivated to beets 5, 159, 840 

Paid to farmers for beets $206, 393, 600 

Paid for labor, fuel, lime rock, coke, limestone, mill supplies, etc $103, 198, 800 

Total annual expenditures $309, 592, 400 

BEET SUGAR IN AMERICA FAILURES. 

The first attempt to produce beet sugar in America was made in 
Philadelphia in 1830, and proved to be an utter failure. Subsequent 
attempts were made at various times from 1837 to 1878 at Northamp- 
ton, Mass., Chatsworth Park, 111., Freeport, 111., Fond du Lac, Wis., in 
New Jersey, California, and Portland, Me., it being estimated that 
over $2,250,000 were sunk in these experiments. 

FIRST SUCCESSFUL PLANTS 

In 1879 the first successful American factory was erected at Alva- 
rado, Cal. In 1888 we had two factories, and for the first time in 
our history produced 1,000 tons of beet sugar in a single season. 
When the Dingley bill was passed five years ago, we had six factories, 
which it had cost $2,000,000 to construct. 

EXPANSION UNDER THE DINGLEY TARIFF. 

Since the passage of the Dingley bill we have erected 36 factories 
and enlarged the other plants at a cost of over $30,000,000. 

In addition to this, the Department of Agriculture in January of 
this year gave out a list of 86 factories which were projected and 
would require an expenditure of $49,000,000 in construction work 
alone. 

The production of beet sugar in the United States in 1900 was 
76,659 tons; in 1901, 185,000 tons; an increase of 140 per cent in a 
single year, and the plantings this year are reported to be 85 per 
cent greater than in 1901. 

FUTURE EXPANSION. 

The United States importations of sugar last year m excess of 
what we produced at home and received from our island possessions, 
were over 1,500,000 tons. To produce this sugar at home would mean 
the construction of 500 new factories, at an expense of $275,000,000, 
and the cultivation of over 1,600,000 acres to beets, for which our 
farmers would receive about $70,000,000 annually. As the sugar 
consumption in the United States is increasing at the rate of over 6 
per cent per annum, sixteen years hence we should provide for the 
production of another 2,500,000 tons annually, which would return 
$100,000,000 more to our farmers, or a total of $170,000,000 each year. 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

EARLY MISCONCEPTIONS. 

We have had, and still have, many things to learn concerning the 
industry. I remember very well that when I commenced to investi- 
gate this subject the prevailing opinion was that California was the 
only State in the Union in which beets could be grown successfully. 
To-day we have a chain of 45 factories, stretching from ocean to 
ocean. 

It was but six or eight years ago that the officers of the Chino, Cal., 
factory, learning that some of the farmers were irrigating their 
beets, sent out notice that no irrigated beets would be received, no 
beets ever having been raised by irrigation, and the supposition being 
that they would be of low sugar content. To-day our richest beets 
are grown by irrigation. 

TEN years' progress AT LEHI. 

In 1891 the acreage tonnage at Lehi, Utah, was 6.6 tons per acre; 
in 1901, 11.50 tons per acre, an increase of 74 per cent in ten years. 
In 1891, the sugar content of the Lehi beets was 11 per cent; in 1901, 
15.20 per cent, an increase of 38 per cent. In 1891 the sugar extrac- 
tion at Lehi was 110 pounds per ton of beets; in 1901 it was 235 
pounds, an increase of 114 per cent. In 1889 the " factory expense " 
in working up a ton of beets at the Alvarado, Cal., factory, was $6.57 ; 
in 1897, $2.71, a decrease of 58 per cent. 

It will thus be seen that we are making rapid strides in the right 
direction, and it is only a question of time when the American farmer 
and the American artisan will be able to compete with the world. 

LABOR-SAVING APPLIANCES. 

Europe has cheap labor and dear horses, and hence has not the 
American incentive to decrease the labor of the former and increase 
that of the latter. With us the reverse condition is true, and hence 
more and more of our field work is being done by horses. In all 
parts of the beet belt various experiments are being made, the suc- 
cess of which will still further reduce the hand labor. In Kansas 
they are trying a new method to avoid much of the hand work of 
weeding and thinning; in Michigan they are experimenting with 
ridge planting to accomplish the same purpose, and various experi- 
ments are being made whereby the beets are lifted, topped, and 
loaded into wagons entirely by machinery. Ten years from now but 
little hand work will be necessary, and therein lies one of the most 
important points in the development of the industry. 

WASTE OF BY-PRODUCTS. 

In France the returns from the sale of pulp alone amount to over 
4 per cent on the entire capital invested in beet-sugar factories. In 
the United States, with few exceptions, the disposal of the pulp is a 
positive expense, yet for bone, blood, and milk, beet pulp is worth 
$3.40 per ton, as against hay at $10 and corn meal at $18 per ton. Our 
farmers will learn this in time, and this utilization of a single by- 
product will yield a fair interest on the entire investment. In 



6 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Europe alcohol, potash, vinegar, shoe blacking, and other products 
are obtained from the waste of the beet, and it can be but a question 
of time when the American will utilize every particle of the beet, 
just as the late Phil. Armour said the packers now utilize every par- 
ticle of the pig except the squeal. 

FULL-ACREAGE TONNAGE. 

The full tonnage of beets, planted 8 inches apart, in rows 18 inches 
wide, is 38 tons per acre, and the honorable Secretary of Agriculture 
informs me that time and again he has raised 28 tons per acre on his 
Iowa farm. Yet the average tonnage last year in the United States 
was 9.6 tons. All this will be rapidly rectified as our farmers become 
familiar with the culture. 

In the vicinity of Magdeburg, Germany, beets are grown on land 
worth $800 to $1,200 per acre, land where the rent is high, and where 
fertilizers to the value of $12 to $15 per acre must be added each year, 
and still the beets are sold at a profit of $4 to $4.50 per ton. So 
anxious are the farmers to raise this most profitable crop that the 
factories are obliged to limit the beet acreage of each farmer. 

BEETS AND DROUGHT. 

The sugar beet will stand more drought, on the one hand, or more 
excessively wet weather, on the other, than will almost any crop that 
the farmer can raise ; hence it is a safe crop, which is sold in advance 
at a fixed cash price. 

BEETS IN ROTATION. 

As a rotater the sugar beet is far above any other ordinary crop. 
The ojiinion formerly prevailed that the sugar beet rapidly exhausted 
the soil, but this is not the case, if properly rotated. 

Let me read to you a rej)ort from one of our German consuls : 

A German farm of 625 acres produced, before the introduction of beet culture, 
yearly, 9,736 bushels of grain in ten years' average. After beet culture was in- 
troduced, with 125 acres yearly to beets, the average yearly grain crop from the 
remaining 500 acres was 9,870 bushels, or 134 bushels' increase. Another farm 
in the province of Saxony, also of 625 acres, produced before beet culture was 
introduced, in ten years' average, 13,879 bushels of grain. When five years 
afterwards 135 acres were planted with beets, the grain crop of the remaining 
490 acres was 14,365 bushels' average, and afterwards, when yearly 220 acres of 
beets were planted, the average grain crop from the remaining 405 acres was 
14,397 bushels, or 518 bushels more than from the whole 025 acres before beets 
were raised. Thirty-five other farms of 500 to 1,000 acres each in the province 
of Saxony showed the following result: 

Average crops per acre, in pounds. 



Wheat... 

Rye 

Barley. -. 

Oate 

Peas 

Potatoes. 



Before 
beet cul- 
ture. 



1,848 
1,456 
1,072 
1,355 
985 
6,716 



After 
beet cul- 
ture. 



2,292 
1,672 
2,094 
1,918 
1,834 
13,500 



Increase, 

In 
pounds. 



444 

216 
422 
563 
849 
6,874 



Per cent 
Increase. 



24 

14.8|J 

25.211 

41. B 

86 
102.311 



The average beet crop of these farms was 17 tons 400 pounds per acre. 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

The above demonstrations show what a boon the culture of beets 
will be to our farmers, who are the backbone of our national wealth. 
The Secretary of Agriculture states that in order to get the benefit of 
beets as a rotater and to get the pulp to feed to his cows the farmer 
could actuallj^ afford to furnish the factory the sugar from his beets 
free, and then would be only selling the air, for the sugar in beets 
comes wholly from the air. 

Professor Powell, formerly of the Smithsonian Institution, makes 
the statement that in semiarid America there is enough rich tillable 
land and enough water that the two, once married, would support in 
affluence 70,000,000 people. 

I am familiar with nearly all of our arid country, and I can form 
no other conclusion than that from an agricultural standpoint our 
most productive land has been left to the last, an inheritance for fu- 
ture generations. 

BEETS AND IRRIGATION. 

Congress, for the first time, has now acted in the matter of national 
irrigation, and we hope that soon large areas of our desert country 
will be placed under irrigation ditches. Now, ask any agricultural 
expert as to what is the best crop that can be grown in large quantities 
on this arid land. He will tell you " sugar beets," because the farmer 
has a market that can not be overdone. It is by all odds the greatest 
agricultural possibility in America, both East and West, but more 
especially the West, where the variety of crops is more limited, and 
the industry deserves the continued fostering care of our Federal 
Government. 

AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS AND IMPORTS. 

The United States exports about $800,000,000 worth of agricultrfral 
products annually and imports $400,000,000 worth annually. Of 
this $400,000,000 in gold which we send abroad for agricultural 
products, $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 are for sugar, every pound of 
which we are eminently adapted to produce. Of the remaining 
$300,000,000 worth, coffee, rubber, spices, and fibers constitute about 
$200,000,000, all of which our newly acquired island possessions are 
adapted to produce, and they and adjoining islands should eventually 
supply them. 

Increased acreage tonnage b}^ cultivation and proper rotation, 
utilization of the waste, and reduction of the hand labor are evolutions 
of the near future in the production of American beet sugar which 
will revolutionize its cost of production, give employment to hun- 
dreds of thousands of farmers and artisans, and cheaper sugar to 
the nation. 

REFINING VERSUS MANUFACTURING SUGAR. 

The refining of imported raw sugar yields but little to American 
industry and should be abandoned as soon as possible. According 
to the figures furnished the United States Industrial Commission by 
the sugar refiners, American industry secures but $6.72 out of the 
refining of 1 ton of imported raw sugar. In producing a ton of 
sugar from American-grown beets American industry receives a 
trifle over $80, based on the present average cost of about 4 cents per 



8 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

pound to produce. Some American factories are now producing beet 
sugar at less than 3 cents per pound ; and when the cost of production 
gets down to 2 cents per pound, American industry will still receive 
$40 per ton by manufacturing our own sugar, as against $6.72 per 
ton by refining the imported article. 

The proposition of refining as compared to manufacturing sugar 
could well be compared to iron, steel, copper, wheat, and corn. 
Suppose it were proposed that we shut down our iron mines and im- 
port our iron in the shape of pigs or ore, simply using American 
labor to work it over into shapes, or import our wheat and corn and 
grind it here. The cases would be parallel and in favor of manu- 
facturing our sugar and importing our corn and wheat, for the 
farmer makes a greater profit in raising beets than in raising either 
of the other crops. 

Another thing about the beet sugar industry is, that it is impossi- 
ble to make a trust out of it without taking the farmers into the 
deal, and the factories must be scattered; whereas, the refineries are 
all located on the coast, and virtually all in a trust, which arbitra- 
rily fixes the price which 76,000,000 of Americans shall pay for an 
article of daily consumption. 

The material results of fostering the beet sugar industry will be 
the retention at home of from $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 which we 
now annually send abroad, cheaper sugar, better farming, more grain 
per acre, less competition, a boon to the dairy and stock interests, 
besides many minor advantages. 

LOCAL BENEFITS. 

One more thought on the practical lines of this subject and I will 
close. 

Desirous of obtaining accurate information concerning the aver- 
age beneficial results brought about locally by the establishment of 
beet sugar factories throughout the United States, I recently wrote 
to the local bankers, county assessors, and postmasters where each of 
our sugar factories is located, and to the sugar companies as well, 
inclosing a blank on which were some 31 questions, to which I re- 
quested answers. Not all of the blanks have been returned, but I 
will give you the benefit of those already received. I will state at 
the outset that not a word of discouragement was expressed in any 
answer in any report. 

I asked : " What gross proceeds per acre are your farmers able to 
secure in beet culture?" In most instances they gave me the range 
from the lowest to the highest. The lowest was $25, the highest 
$180, the average of all $69.40 per acre. 

The next question was: "And how does this compare with what 
the}'^ obtain in raising other crops?" Among the replies were: " One 
hundred per cent higher." " Beets best crop we can grow." " Favor- 
able." " Very much in excess of other crops." "About 300 per cent." 
"An increase of 80 per cent." "A decided improvement." "About 
three times as much." 

Then I asked : "As the farmers become familiar with beet raising, 
are they more or are they less anxious to raise beets?" All replied 
that they were more anxious; that interest was increasing, and, in 
all but one case, that the acreage was being extended. 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 

I next asked : '' Have farm mortgages increased or decreased since 
the erection of the factory, and to what extent?" All but two stated 
that they had decreased, some materially, some 25 per cent, some 30 
per cent, one that very few farms were now mortgaged. Two stated 
that farm mortgages had increased owing to the fact that renters 
were becoming able to buy on partial payments. 

I then asked for : " The average price for agricultural lands prior 
to the location of the factory and at the present time?" Two gave no 
price before the factory was erected, the land being a desert and of 
little value; land in one of those sections now being worth $100 per 
acre, in the other $150 per acre. Of the others, the smallest increase 
was 20 per cent, the greatest 250 per cent. The average price of all 
was $34.28 per acre prior to the location of the factory, and $75.55 
per acre at the present time. The average increase in value was 124 
per cent. 

The next question was : " What effect has the erection of the fac- 
tory had on the prosperity of the farmers?" Here are some of the 
replies : " Glorious." " Profits double." " They are paying debts 
and renters are buying farms." " Good." " Much interest shown." 
" Diversity of crops." '' Enables them to buy land and build homes." 
" Better prices and demand for produce of all kinds." " Greatly in- 
creased." 

I think this pretty accurately sizes up the situation as to the far- 
reaching beneficial effect of the erection of a beet sugar factory on 
surrounding farmers. 

But this is only part of it. Merchants and real estate men are 
affected; in fact, the whole community. I called for the assessed 
valuation of all town property before the erection of the factories 
and at the present time, the same information as to population, 
average price of residence lots, and of business lots. The replies 
show the average increase to be as follows: 

Per cent. 

Assessed valuation, increase 139 

Population, increase 89^ 

Average value of residence lots, increase 59 

Average value of business lots, increase 188 

Rocky Ford, Colo., is a fair sample of what a beet sugar factory 
does for even a good town. Two years ago Rocky Ford was a pros- 
perous town of 1,500 people, largely engaged in raising the celebrated 
" Rocky Ford melons " for the Eastern market. The American Beet 
Sugar Company erected a factory there for the 1900 campaign. 
Rocky Ford's population during these two years has jumped from 
1,500 to 3,000, her assessed valuation from $327,608 to $645,344, the 
price of average residence lots from $50 to $200, of average business 
lots from $750 to $2,000. Over 400 buildings have been constructed 
at an expense exceeding $400,000, and 40 more were in course of con- 
struction at the time my blanks were filed out. 

Sugar City, Colo., is an illustration of what a sugar factory will 
do for a barren desert. When the National Sugar Manufacturing 
Company stuck the stakes for the Sugar City factory there was not 
a house, a barn, or even a shack in sight in any direction ; when steam 
was turned on in the factory seven months later, a crop of 15,000 
tons of beets was ready to harvest and the town had 1,800 people, 
which population has since increased to 2,500. 



10 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

All these results are dire(;tly and wholly attributable to the erection 
of the beet sugar factories. I put another question : " "\Yliat effect 
has the erection of the factory had on the prosperity of your mer- 
chants ? " Here are some of the replies : '' Greatly increased." 
" Business doubled." " Profits doubled." " Many new stores." 
" Prosperous." " No failures." '• Increased cash sales." " Increased 
the business a thousand per cent." " Neither merchants nor pros- 
perity before." 

The question is, Do we want 600 more such towns, each surrounded 
by a thousand or more prosperous farmers' families, or will we by 
changing existing tariff conditions run the risk of selling the birth- 
right of the American farmer for a mess of pottage? 



WEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES AND ITS RELATION TO THE AMERICAN 
BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 

[Address before the fourteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- 
gress, held at Seattle, Wash., August 18-22, 1903.] 

My reasons for addressing you on the subject of the Philippines 
are threefold: First, that the policy of our Government in dealing 
with the Philippine Islands is still in a formative stage ; second, that 
the future development of the material resources of the trans-Missis- 
sippi territory will be greatly affected by the final policy which this 
Government shall adopt in handling the Philippine problem, and 
third, because under the development and control of these tropical 
islands by a temperate zone country it is possible to work out success- 
fully one of the greatest mutual and national economic problems pos- 
sible, namely, to produce under the Stars and Stripes all we consume. 

As our legislators, irrespective of party affiliation, are still in 
doubt as to what further legislation concerning the Philippines will 
prove to be wise, and inasmuch as the strongest kind of pressure by 
interested parties is exerted to bring about certain additional Philip- 
pine legislation at the forthcoming session of Congress, it seems 
opportune that the material interests of these islands and their rela- 
tion to the trans-Mississippi territory should be considered by this 
Congress at the present time. 

Throughout and all about this grand trans-Mississippi country 
the influence of this congress has been felt for twelve years. On the 
Mississippi River; at New Orleans. Beaumont, Galveston, the Brazos 
and Aransas Pass on the Gulf; at San Diego, San Pedro, San Fran- 
cisco, and Puget Sound on the west; and in the interior through 
various provisions in our river and harbor bills; and last, but greatest 
of all, by our national irrigation law, has the influence of this body 
for the upbuilding of its people been exerted, felt, and appreciated. 

For years you have worked and waited patiently for the enactment 
of a national irrigation law, but while you waited there was no danger 
of legislation which would forestall it once the people were ready for 
it. The case with the Philippines is different. There is bound to be 
Philippine legislation soon, and this congress should use its influence, 
first, to safeguard the interests of the people it represents, and second, 
to forward the interests of the 8,000,000 to 9,000.000 of little brown 
men who have recently come under our flag. 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 11 

LOCATTON OF THE PHILIPPINES. 

Far away from our shores, near the southeastern coast of Asia, to 
the northeast of the Island of Borneo, and just above the equator, lie 
the Philippine Islands. Geographically they are 7,000 miles from 
the United States proper. From the north end of the Island of 
Luzon to the south end of the Island of Mindanao it is 780 miles, 
while the extreme width of the archipelago is about 650 miles. 

The total area of the islands is 73,345,415 acres, a territory as large 
as New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined, a little 
less than that of either Colorado or Utah and slightly less than that 
of Japan, which supports a population of about 30,000,000 people. 

Of the 73,000,000 acres, 40,000,000 acres are in virgin timber, much 
of the balance has grown up in second-growth timber; 65,000,000 
acres are arable when cleared. The land is most fertile and for the 
greater part naturally irrigated. 

With the exception of a little less than 5,000,000 acres all the 
land in the Philippines is in the public domain, belonging to the 
government to dispose of as it pleases. Herein lies an opportunity 
which is being worked for speculation and which may easily bring 
disaster to the Filipino people and to arid America. Already in- 
habited by one person to every 8 acres (though largely in little set- 
tlements) , the public domain when divided up will afford 40 acres to 
each family of five. 

These lands, honestly managed, should go to the future Filipinos. 
They should be held by the government until parceled out in home- 
steads or small holdings, each the basis of the hearthstone around 
which centers the patriotism and highest civilization of which we 
under Old Glory boast. Let the pace be set now that will avoid a 
system of tenantry that means serfdom. Establish the right to pro- 
prietorship of the most binding and sacred influence to civilization 
and government, and that is a home. 

The pending schemes to parcel these lands out in 25,000-acre prin- 
cipalities to American exploiting corporations would eventually rob 
the natives of the right to become land owners in their own country 
and force them to become the servile tenants of corporate landlords. 

Fortunately for the Filipino people and for us as their guardians, 
with the sole exception of sugar all of their agricultural industries 
can be developed to best advantage in small holdings of a few acres, 
and the chief capital required is labor. 

The Philippines are populated with between 8,000,000 and 9,000,- 
000 native people, who are a cross between the Malays and Japanese, 
of whom 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 are so-called civilized Christians, the 
balance being savages and Moros. As to foreign population, in 
1876 there were 30,797 Chinamen, who were scattered throughout 
the islands, and 378 white foreigners, most of whom lived in Manila, 
the metropolis. 

In 1902 there were living in the city of Manila 7,852 foreigners, 
9,722 Americans, 60,680 Chinamen, and 223,000 natives, a total of 
302,154. The population of the Philippine Islands averages 74.45 to 
the square mile. We have but 10 States which are so densely popu- 
lated. 

The average density of population of the United States, not in- 
eluding Alaska, is but 25.6 per square mile, or about one-third of 



12 THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

what it is in the Philippines. The trans-Mississippi territory boasts 
but 9 States where the population reaches 10 per square mile. 
California has 9.5, Washington 7.7, Colorado and South Dakota 5.2, 
North Dakota 4.5, Oregon 4.4, Utah 3.4, Idaho 1.9, Montana 1.7, New 
Mexico 1.6, Arizona 1.1, Wyoming .9, Nevada .4, so you can judge by 
comparison as to how thickly populated these islands are with their 
74.5 inhabitants per square mile. 

Unlike the oj)ening up of our Western States, the opening up of 
the Philippines will not make homes for the overcrowded States of 
the East, not only because of the density of the Philippine popula- 
tion, but on account of the climate, which does not afford a sanitari- 
um for our people, to say the least. 

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. 

If Paris is France, then surely Manila is the Philippines, for it is 
the only city of any pretensions in the archipelago. It is not like this 
Pacific coast country, where we have Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San 
Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and a multitude of smaller cities. 
Manila is the metropolis ; it has no rivals, and there are few other set- 
tlements we would dignify by the name of village. The people are 
scattered about, neither in cities nor on the land generally, but in little 
settlements, and their principal food is rice, fish, and wild fruit and 
vegetables. 

Ninety per cent of the people do not speak even Spanish, and their 
only education, if they have any, is limited to a knowledge of their 
local dialect and to a knowledge of reading or writing to the extent 
of being able to sign their names and spell out the catechism. 

Until American occupation 600 schools sufficed for the entire 8,000,- 
000 to 9,000,000 population. Since American occupation over 7,500 
schools have been established, in which are about 1,000 American 
teachers. 

Their beasts of burden are the water buffalo, slow going animals, 
which must be allowed to enter the water frequently or they will die. 
The bulk of the water buffalo were recently swept away by the rinder- 
pest, which ravages the islands every few years, but as these animals 
are common in Southern China and India, the Philippines are re- 
stocked from those countries. 

They also have a limited supply of native ponies, and these were re- 
cently decimated by the surra, as were also the American horses which 
had been shipped in. 

They have no hoes, rakes, forks, shovels, picks, or any agricultural 
tools or implements except an occasional wood pointed plow. 

Our Louisiana and Tennessee friends would look on in wonderment 
to see them plant and harvest rice and sugar. The rice is sown in a 
" seeding plot," and at the end of six weeks, when it is about a foot 
in height, the stalks are transplanted one by one by hand, to a flooded 
field. The planter uses a stock to make the hole in the soft ground 
and thrusts the root of the rice stalk in, one at a time, until he has 
40,000 planted on an acre. 

In harvesting he cuts the stalks one by one, ties them up in bimdles, 
and thrashes it by crushing between blocks of hard wood or by al- 
lowing the water buffalo to tramp over it, regardless of the cracking 
of the kernels. 



THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 13 

In planting sugar cane several natives guide a wood-pointed plow 
Avhich is pulled by a water buffalo, or, as is more often the case, na- 
tives by the dozen on their hands and knees turn and prepare the soil 
with their hands, or with little bamboo sticks, the methods of planting 
and harvesting being equally crude. 

Prior to American occupation the wage rate of Chinese laborers 
on sugar estates was 8 cents per day, of natives 10 cents per day, the 
laborers boarding themselves. Emploj^ers who operated stores were 
able to get their help as low as $15 a year, figuring at cost the goods 
which they supplied them. vSince American occupation the wage rate 
has increased quite materially. 

As in all tropical countries, the wants of the natives are simple, and 
indolence is their besetting sin. But that they will work and work 
well is the general testimony of the quartermasters and other Amer- 
ican officers, who say that for both skilled and unskilled labor they 
prefer them to Chinamen. 

The wealth of the Philippines lies in her forests and her agricul- 
ture. No mines of any account have been discovered, and aside from 
the making of cigars little has been done in manufacturing. 

FORESTRY. 

In her 10,000,000 acres of virgin forests the chief of the Philip- 
pine forestry bureau already reports the discovery of between 600 
and 700 species of timber, including twelve species of cabinet woods, 
many of them unknown to any other portion of the globe, dye woods, 
gum trees, gutta-percha and rubber, and pine timber, the sight oi 
which the American governor of Abra says, " would make the lum- 
bermen of Maine stand in open-mouthed wonderment." All but 
about 1,000,000 acres, or one-fortieth of these forests, belong to the 
government. 

The forestry bureau estimates that at the present government tax 
of 6 cents per cubic foot, and cutting only trees which are over 
20 inches in diameter, the timber removed from 20,000,000 acres will 
yield the government $100 per acre, or $2,000,000,000, and still leave 
the forests in better condition than at present. 

The other 20,000,000 acres he estimates will yield more than half 
as much more. He further reports that after the mature and over- 
mature timber is removed the revenue from the sale of the annual 
increase of growth of public timber will, under careful supervision, 
bring the state a reasonable interest on a valuation of $200 per acre, 
which would amount to $240,000,000 annually on a basis of 3 per cent. 

For the year 1902 we imported cabinet woods to the value of 
$3,400,957, and the Philippines exported it to the value of $72,480. 
These woods enter our market free of duty, and with such an 
abundance of hard-wood forests our free market should greatly 
stimulate the development of this industry, which alone would make 
the Filipinos the richest people on the face of the earth. 

GUTTA-PERCHA AND INDIA RUBBER. 

In 1902 we imported gutta-percha and India rubber to the value 
of $27,094,622, while the Philippines exported it to the value of 
$182,312. 



14 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Many millions of American money have been invested in estab- 
lishing rubber plantations in Mexico, Central and South America. 
In the PhilijDpines there are vast native forests of both gutta-percha 
and rubber trees. The wasteful method of gathering the sap by ring- 
ing the trees prevails, and yields but one-thirty-fifth to one- fortieth 
of the entire yield which can be secured by up-to-date methods, and 
still it is profitable. 

The great island of Mindanao, the largest in the archipelago, over 
which Gen. Leonard Wood has recently been made governor, is the 
most celebrated of all for its forests of gum, gutta-percha, and rub- 
ber trees. It is inhabited by wild men and Moros, who are rapidly 
being subjugated, and stupendous financial results can be looked for 
from rubber and gutta-percha in that quarter. 

As to planting and establishing rubber plantations, the Philippine 
Commission states that that is a project which can in no sense be 
considered in the light of an experiment, and that planters estimate 
an annual return of from $150 to $200 per acre after the trees reach 
maturity, the first good harvest being in six years from the planting. 

It can confidently be expected that vast sums of American money 
will find its way into the gathering of Philippine rubber and gutta- 
percha from the original forests and in establishing plantations 
which should eventually supply us with the $27,000,000 worth which 
we annually consume. We formerly imposed a duty of 50 per cent 
ad valorem on rubber, but abolished it in 1870, and rubber and gutta- 
percha now enter our markets free of duty. 

HEMP. 

I venture the assertion that no other country in the world possesses 
such a valuable copyright on its leading product as nature has given 
to the Philippines in the matter of hemp. Manila hemp can be pro- 
duced in no other portion of the world, but grows wild in both moun- 
tains and valleys in the Philippines. It affords the greatest return 
for the effort expended of any product of the island. Natives make 
$4 to $5 a day in gathering the wild product, while the profits are 
doubled when the plant is put under cultivation. 

The cost of original planting is as low as $1.25 per 1,000 plants, 
from 200 to 700 to the acre. The bureau of insular affairs states that 
one-twentieth of the eastern and southern portions of the islands are 
utilized for hemp growing, and that five-eighths of the remainder, 
now covered with forests, are suitable for the cultivation of hemp. 
Manila hemp can be produced at a profit of one-third the present 
prices, or at one-half the cost of the cheaper substitutes, such as sisal 
grass, of which the world consumes over $100,000,000 worth annually, 
because it can not get Manila hemp. 

The plant resembles the banana, is immune from insect pests or 
damage by weather conditions, and requires no machinery in either 
growing or harvesting, and hence no capital is necessary to engage in 
the business. There is no necessity of replanting for a long time, as 
new shoots are continually forming, and when one is cut off another is 
almost ready to harvest. 

From 44,137 tons in 1877, the exportations have risen to 65,476 tons 
in 1900 and 108,264 tons in 1902, The exportations for 1902 were 
valued at $16,019,438, and formed 65 per cent of the total exports of 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 

the islands and 75 per cent of the agricultural exports. Practically 
all Manila hemp is used for ship rigging, which demands the best 
article in the market, but CA^en the cheaper sisal grass substitute com- 
mands $133.53 per ton against $186.97 per ton for Manila hemp; 
hence there is a hundred-million-dollar world market for this profit- 
able copyright Philippine specialty. There is no American customs 
duty on hemp, and we now take about one-half of the Philippine 
product. 

COFFEE. 

The American importations of coffee, largely from Brazil, are enor- 
mous. In 1900 the value of our importations was $54,468,041, while 
in 1902 it had risen to $70,919,257, all of which comes in free of duty. 
Until a short time ago coffee was a widely distributed product in 
several provinces of the Philippines, frequently standing third in the 
value of her exports. The magnificent palaces of the former so-called 
Philippine coffee barons are still standing in Lipa, and the exquisite 
work on the interior timbers, which were hand carved after being 
placed in position, is greatly admired by American visitors. Experts 
declare that many localities produce a berry equal to the Mocha, the 
highest-priced coffee in the world. 

The superiority of the Philippine coffee is shown by the fact that 
while they secured 12| cents per pound for their product in 1902, the 
1,000,000,000 pounds which we imported the same year only brought 
the growers, laid in our ports, an average of 6^ cents per pound, or 
about one-half as much. Some years ago the borers, common to all 
horticultural countries, and easily coped with by modern horticultural 
science, attacked the Philippine coffee plantations and practically 
ruined them. The exports in 1902 amounted to but 189,046 pounds, 
valued at $23,102, or 121 cents per pound. 

The Department of Agriculture some time ago established a very 
efficient station at Manila, with substations in various portions of the 
islands, where our skilled horticulturists and agriculturists are edu- 
cating the natives in the science of production, the fighting of pests, 
and the use of modern agricultural implements. 

Never again will the borers be allowed to ravage the Philippine 
coffee plantations, and with a duty-free market and a coffee which 
commands double the price per pound this rich nation pays for the 
$70,000,000 worth we are now importing from other countries, it 
surely should not be long before coffee will again be one of the largest 
items of Philippine export. 

COPRA AND COCOANUTS. 

"We annually import a little more than $1,000,000 worth of cocoa- 
nuts and dried cocoanut meat called copra, which is largely used 
in the manufacture of soap. In 1902 the Philippines exported 
$1,000,000 worth of this product, while for the first nine months of the 
fiscal year 1903 the exports were valued at $3,231,421, three-quarters 
of which went to France. The monthly summary of commerce of the 
Philippines says that copra is a good, steady crop in any of the 
southern islands, and that a small cluster of cocoanut trees is suffi- 
cient to keep a native family in the lap of luxury. 



16 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The tree has to be planted and guarded against the browsing of 
cattle for the first four or five years of its life. After that, nature and 
the Chinese trader will do the rest. The ground under the trees is 
now either allowed to grow up with brush or is kept clear by hand. 
The life of a tree is in the neighborhood of a century. 

Two hundred trees can be grown to the acre, almost assuring an 
annual income of $100 gold. Thus it can be seen that the position of 
a proprietor of a large and flourishing grove of cocoanut trees is al- 
most a sinecure. The wear and tear on the human system of sitting 
in the shade and watching the copra crop mature is so small as to be 
almost inconsiderable. Cocoanut lands can be had in Mindanao at 
$5 to $10 per acre, and the product enters our market free of duty. 

CACAO. 

The United States imports of crude and prepared cacao for 1902 
were valued at $6,950,336. The Philippine exports in 1900 were 
valued at $2,203, and have been gradually diminishing since that time, 
The secretary of the interior to the Philippine Commission reports 
that the cacao produced in the islands is of a very superior quality, 
most of the exports going to Spain, where it brings an especially 
high price. 

Insect pests and lack of proper care are accountable for the present 
condition of the plantations, and will be remedied through the efforts 
of our Department of Agriculture. The Bureau of Insular Affairs 
recently issued a bulletin devoted solely to cacao, showing that it 
is one of the most profitable crops which can be grown in the islands, 
and it should not be long before they supply us with the $7,000,000 
worth which we annually import, all of which comes in free of duty. 

SISAL. 

Of sisal grass and other fibers, not including hemp, the Philippines 
exported last year $178,120 worth ; of copal, which makes the finest 
varnish in the world, $73,010; of other gums, $68,792; of tortoise 
shells, $101,444; of indigo, $8,806, making the total value in exports, 
including the articles already mentioned, $17,548,447. 

HOW TO AID BOTH PHILIPPINES AND THE UNITED STATES. 

With one or two minor exceptions all of the above-mentioned 
articles are produced from the forests or from small individual 
plantations, which can be established practically without any capital, 
and the opportunity for expansion in each of these industries is all 
but limitless. 

While the Philippines exported about $17,500,000 worth of these 
products, the United States imj)orted them last year, from the Phil- 
ippines and from other countries, to the enormous value of $144,- 
873,556. Not a pound of them are now produced or ever will be 
produced in the United States proper, as they are of a purely tropical 
nature and can not be grown here. The fostering of these most 
profitable industries in the Philippines and in our other island pos- 
sessions will be a great boon to our newly acquired " little brown 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 17 

men," will make us more independent of other nations, and will not 
injure a single industry, a locality, or a person in the United States. 

We now have a coffee country of our own, a rubber country, a gutta- 
percha country, a copra country, a cacao country, a hemp country 
(the only one in the world), a rare cabinet-wood country, and we 
should do everything possible to encourage those 8.000,000 brown men 
to produce the $150,000,000 of these articles which we annually con- 
sume. If the encouragement already given by the Department of 
Agriculture and by other departments of our Government should not 
prove to be sufficient, we could put a tariff of a quarter of a cent a 
pound on coffee coming from other countries, and that would raise 
$2,500,000 a year, which could be covered into a special fund to be 
used by the Philippine government to develop a coffee country of our 
own, and no one would feel such a slight tax. The same would follow 
as to the other Philippine products mentioned, and we Avould soon 
have the ocean alive with ships bringing from our own possessions 
those tropical products which we can not produce at home. 

If the Philippine lands are eventually divided up amongst the 
Filipino people, each head of a family will possess a little less than 
40 acres of arable land, the fruits of which will enable them to rear 
and educate their families and become a cvilized people, composed 
of self-respecting, independent, landowners. 

If, on the other hand, their lands are given away to great corpora- 
tions, the Filipino people must eventually become homeless chattels 
of those corporate interests. 

COMPETITIVE PRODUCTS. 

Now that I have recounted the important Philippine industries 
which can profitably be extended indefinitely without injuring the 
conditions of a single American citizen, let me turn to those Philip- 
pine industries where Asiatic labor at 8 cents per day comes in com- 
petition with our labor — to-day, and I hope for all time, the best paid 
in the world. Of these products there are at present but two, sugar 
and tobacco, both of which are produced very cheaply and in great 
quantities in the Philippines, and both of which are important Ameri- 
can agricultural industries, one of them being a trans-Mississippi 
specialty of no slight importance. 

TOBACCO. 

The 1902 exports of Philippine tobacco and cigars, mostly cigars, 
amounted in value to $2,761,432, and the exports are gradually grow- 
ing. The product is largely taken by Europe and Asia, little of it 
now coming to the United States. Labor is so cheap in the Philip- 
pines that a fair cigar can be had in Manila at a cost of 1 cent. 

Our Bureau of Labor has prepared a list of all wageworkers in 
Manila, giving the number engaged in each occupation and the wages 
which are paid. This publication shows that the 31 cigar and ciga- 
rette factories of Manila employ 12,168 people, of whom 18 are white, 
468 are Chinamen, and 11,700 are natives. The average wage rate 
of them all, in gold, is 35^ cents per day, or. but a fraction over 25 
per cent of what the Census Bureau shows is paid for the same class 
of labor in the United States cigar factories. 

S. Doc. 530, 60-1 2 



18 THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The testimony from the Philippines shows that the growers of 
tobacco are averaging $60 in gold net profit per acre, which is far in 
excess of what our tobacco farmers are able to make. Last year we 
imported tobacco and cigars to the value of $16,331,535.70. 

In the census year 1900, 308,317 American farmers, scattered 
through 43 States, planted 1,101,483 acres to tobacco and produced a 
crop of 868,000,000 pounds, which had a farm value of $80,000,000. 
We have 15,000 tobacco manufacturers, employing $124,00,000 capital 
and turning out a product valued at over $283,000,000. 

We have 15,000 cigar manufacturers, who employ $67,000,000 of 
capital and turn out a product valued at $160,000,000. The cigar 
and tobacco factories employ 245,000 wage-earners, whose wages 
amount to $110,000,000 a year. Our tobacco is mostly grown and 
manufactured east of the trans-Mississippi countrj^, but it is grown 
back where we came from, it is grown by our own flesh and blood, it 
is manufactured by well-paid American labor, and it is a commercial 
advantage to all of us to have it j)roduced in this country. 

As illustrating the brains, the skill, the energy, the honesty of pur- 
pose, and the love of country now being exercised in behalf of the 
welfare of this great agricultural people, and which w^ould be at 
least partially nullified by unwise legislation, let me cite you an in- 
stance connected with the subject in question : 

A few years ago the present Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. James 
Wilson, determined that, if possible, we should grow in the United 
States all the tobacco we consume. He dispatched one of his tobacco 
scientists to the island of Sumatra to study their soil, climate, and 
processes for a year. On the return of this scientist the Secretary 
started a search for the American soil corresponding most closely 
with the Sumatra soil which produced their finest grades of tobacco. 
It was found in the Connecticut Valley and in Florida. Experi- 
mental stations were established in Connecticut, with the purpose of 
producing the Sumatra climate. 

An acre, of ground was tented over with mesh wire and cheese 
cloth, supported by posts 9 feet high, the cloth running down to the 
ground on all sides. 'Under this tent the Sumatra tobacco grew to 
perfection, and brought $2 a pound, as compared with a few cents a 
pound for tobacco grown near by in the open air. 

The expense of production was about $700 per acre, the income 
$1,500, and the next year planters covered 36 acres. This year 1,000 
acres have been covered. 

Sumatra tobacco usually grows to a height of 3^ to 5 feet. The 
tents under which this tobacco is grown are 9 feet from the ground, 
and in some instances the tobacco poked its way clear through the 
covering, while the leaves are exceedingly broad and thin and of the 
finest grade and texture. 

Furthermore, it ordinarily takes one man to 2^ to 3 acres to 
destroy the tobacco worms and fleas. Under the tents they have 
been troubled with neither of these pests. The Secretary of Agri- 
culture is firmly convinced that wdthin five to eight years we shall 
be growing all of the $6,000,000 worth of Sumatra leaf which we are 
now annually importing. 

Not content with the success which attended the efforts of his 
experts in growing our wrapper tobacco, the Secretary has since had 
his experts investigating possibilities of producing the fine Cuban 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTEY OF THE UNITED STATES. 19 

filler tobacco. Favorable soils were discovered in Ohio and Texas, 
which last year produced such satisfactory results that the Secretary 
confidently predicts that within a very few years we shall not be 
obliged to send a dollar abroad for tobacco, but will produce at 
home the very choicest grades. 

It would thus seem that within a comparatively short time the 
American market for foreign tobacco will be a thing of the past, 
unless killed by some new competition. This is but one of scores of 
instances which I could mention where the present Secretary of 
Agriculture is striving to enable us to produce at home those things 
which can be grown in the temperate zone which we do not now 
produce, and he is striving just as hard to show our little brown 
men how to produce to the best advantage those things which we 
can never hope to produce at home. That is what I call statesman- 
ship, and it is justice to all, at home and in our island possessions. 

BULBS. 

Another instance of this intelligent work will be of especial inter- 
est to my local hearers. We annually import about $750,000 worth 
of bulbs. They come largely from Holland and are often dieased. 
The Secretary of Agriculture sent an expert out some time since 
to see if some place could not be discovered in the United States 
where these bulbs could be grown. He traveled in many directions 
and finally landed in the great State of Washington. 

The very latest development in the Department of Agriculture, 
as I left Washington City a few months ago, was the establishment 
of the fact that here in the State of Washington we can grow our 
own bulbs, free of disease, of the very highest order, and turn our 
$750,000 over to the citizens of this State instead of to those of the 
Kingdom of Holland. Is that what you gentlemen want, or would 
you prefer that they be grown in Holland, or, perhaps, in the 
Philippines ? 

SUGAR PRODUCT OF INTEREST. 

The only important Philippine product which I have not yet 
mentioned is sugar, and, unlike tobacco, sugar is primarily a trans- 
Mississippi product in which practically every delegate to this con- 
gress is or should be interested, for the present home industry and 
its future expansion will affect every one of your pocketbooks one way 
or the other. 

In 1901 we produced in the United States proper 991,688,133 
pounds of sugar. Of this amount, 864,724,100 pounds, or 87 per cent 
of the total, were produced from cane and beets grown in the trans- 
Mississippi territory, and hence, as I say, to all intents and purposes 
it is strictly a trans-Mississippi industry. Practically without ex- 
ception every State in the trans-Mississippi territory can produce 
to advantage either cane or beet sugar. 

What I mean to show you as to sugar is that under existing con- 
ditions the trans-Mississippi territory can and will soon produce 
the bulk of the 2,500,000 tons of sugar which the United States proper 
now imports, and that by so doing we, the West, can add $250,000,000 
annually to our wealth. 



20 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OP THE UNITED STATES. 

I also mean to show that should Congress accede to the present de- 
mands of the Philippine Commission for the free entrj' of their 
sugar to American ports, for the introduction of contract coolie 
labor in the Philippines, and that vast tracts of the Filipinos' lands 
be granted to sugar corj^orations, it is inevitable that further material 
growth of the sugar industry in the trans-Mississippi territory must 
cease and that eventually the $120,000,000 to $130,000,000 already 
invested in the industry in the trans-Mississippi territory will be 
abandoned. 

In 1893 the Philippines exported 261,519 tons of sugar, 100,000 
tons more than all of the trans-Mississippi beet sugar factories pro- 
duced in 1901. 

Owing to the insurrection and the ravages of the rinderpest, the 
Philipi^ine exports had fallen to 55,399 in 1901, but had increased 
to 108,000 tons in 1902, and the indications are that the 1903 exports 
will exceed 150,000 tons. 

This, however, is as nothing. Her 260,000 tons were as nothing. 
"While we make nearly 500,000 tons at home, our annual importations 
amount to 2,500,000 tons, which amounts to one-quarter of the world's 
production. 

The government experts in the Philippines assert that they have 
a sufficient area of the finest sugar land in the Avorld, excelling even 
that of Cuba, Hawaii, and Java, to produce all the sugar the world 
consumes. Possessing the first requisite for cheap production, fertile 
sugar land, they also possess the second, cheap labor, which enables 
them to produce sugar at an exceedingly low cost. The lowest 
cost of production in Germany is 2 cents per pound. In the United 
States, on account of well-paid labor, it costs from 3 cents to 4 cents, 
depending upon local conditions. 

In the Philippines, in 1896, the average cost of production bj^ the 
Sugar Estates Development Company, the largest producers in the 
islands, who had 20,999 acres in cane and produced 37,000 tons of 
sugar, was 95 cents per 100 pounds. This concern further states that 
on a small experimental tract Avhich they gave more than usual care, 
they produced it at a cost of 62^ cents per 100 pounds. 

I have already alluded to the crude methods of planting and har- 
vesting by hand, without tools or implements of any kind. As to 
the process of manufacturing, I will quote from reports by the Phil- 
ippine Commission and the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War 
Department : 

" The regulation sugar mill is constructed of bamboo, but very 
many are made of stone and roofed with sheet metal or with 
nipa" * * * jj^ ^]-^g manufacture of sugar the best methods are 
not generally employed. The natives extract the juice by means of 
mills of stone, wood, or iron, these being called trapiches. (Usually 
operated by buffalo power.) 

" The juice is then collected and boiled in kettles, a little lime being 
added to purify it. "Wlien the boiling has reached a certain point, 
which is recognized by those who are expert, it is passed on to a sec- 
ond kettle, where the boiling is continued until it reaches a certain 
temperature. It is then poured into conical molds, which are placed 
upright, so that the molasses may drain off. These molds are placed 
over small jars, where they remain until the sugar has formed, it now 
beins: free from molasses. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 21 

" MANY MILLS REFITTED. 

" Hundreds of these partly burned mills have been restored for 
active services by replacing the roof and cleaning and overhauling 
the machinery. A number of Americans have been able to buy these 
deserted mills at ridiculously low prices, and they are making a good 
thing out of the investment. The old animal traction machines are 
usually exchanged for new devices, but even with the old apparatus 
money is made. The American owner hires an experienced Filipino 
or Spanish overseer to manage things, and he usually does well. 

"Prices are low, usually 2 cents or 2^ cents per pound (1 cent to 
1^ cents in American money — the present f. o. b. Philippine price, 
June 15, is $1.56 per 100 pounds). But the cost of production is also 
small, so that profits are good. Nearly all of the sugar planters, 
refiners, and candy makers of the islands with whom I met appeared 
to flourish. I know that many of the planters have their servants 
and wheeled vehicles and their bank accounts." 

RECOMMENDATIONS OF PHILIPPINE COMMISSION. 

In the last annual report of the Philippine Commission under date 
of Novemeber 1, 1902, six special requests are made, three of which 
interest the trans-Mississippi territory, and which I herewith produce : 

First recommendation : 

1. The establishment of a gold standard, in these lands npon the plan recom- 
mended by the Commission in the report q£ last year, and of banking corpora- 
tions empowered to issue circulating bank notes under proper safeguards. 

Congress has already acceded to this demand, and the new 50-cent 
dollars are now being used in the islands. 

If other things were equal, this act alone would give them labor at 
one-half what it costs us. 

Eecommendation No. 2 : 

2. The reduction of at least 75 per cent of the Dingley rates of duties upon 
goods imported into the United States from the Philippine Islands. 

PhilipiDine tariff reduction is a broad sounding term, but inasmuch 
as her coffee, rubber, hemp, sisal grass, copra, copal and other gums, 
cabinet woods, shells, cacao, and indigo, which form practically all 
of the Philippine exports except sugar and tobacco, already come in 
duty free, it is plain to be seen that this is simply and solely a request 
for a reduction of duty on these two competitive products. 

Recommendation No. 3 : 

3. An amendment of the Philippine act so that the limit upon lands which 
may be sold to or held by individuals or corporations from the public domain 
shall be increased from 1,024 hectares to 25,000 acres, or, in the alternative, 
so that the government shall be given the power to lease for sixty years upon 
competitive bidding tracts from the public land aggregating in any individual 
or corporate lessee not more than 30,000. 

These vast tracts are not desired or needed for anything except to 
create enormous tropical sugar estates for exploitation. As proof of 
what it is wanted for I will quote from Governor Taft's testimony 
before the insular committee as follows: 

With reference to the sugar lands, I understand in Cuba there are planta- 
tions of 20,000 acres. The limitation inserted in this bill was 5,000 acres. 
I think that is too small. 



22 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Mr. Williams of Illinois. What number would .vou suggest? 
Governor Taft. Twenty thousand acres might be a fair limitation ; that is 
for sugar lands. 

And again: 

Then with respect to the selling of large tracts, if the islands are to be de- 
veloped in the sugar industry, the limitation upon the number of acres that can 
be sold to any one company ought to be determined with reference to the cost 
of the plant. I observe that the law limits it to 5,000 acres. I should think that 
land can be sold at auction with the minimum price, but without bringing about 
an abuse I think the limit might be raised to the limit of the sugar plantations 
in Cuba that are profitably worked. 

The next recommendation is for the introduction of contract coolie 
Chinese labor to compete with, still further reduce the Avage rate of, 
and take the work away from the Filipino. Before quoting the rec- 
ommendation I will quote from the testimony of Gen. Luke E. Wright, 
vice-governor of the Philippines, as given before the Senate Com- 
mittee on the Philip]3ines, December 9, 1902 : 

Senator Burrows. Then do I understand that owing to labor conditions the 
development of the sugar industry would be retarded? 

General Wright. It would be slow. 

Senator Burrows. And it would be necessary to admit cheap labor, Chinese 
labor, in order to make it profitable? 

General Wright. Yes, sir. 

Senator Burrows. If that cheap labor were admitted, to what extent might 
that industry be developed? 

General Wright. Oh, indefinitely. The islands are very rich, and both climate 
and soil favor the production of sugar on a large scale. There is no doubt about 
that. 

Senator DuBois. Do you know how much sugar they can produce per acre as 
compared, we will say, with Hawaii? 

General Wright. By the same methods of intensive farming as are used in 
Hawaii ? 

Senator DuBois. Yes. 

General Wright. I should say they would produce as much. I am inclined 
to think the soil in the Philippines is fully as good and probably better. 

Senator DuBois. That is about three times as much as we can produce per 
acre in Louisiana. 

The recommendation for the introduction of contract coolie Chinese 
labor is as follows : 

That an amendment be made to the Chinese exclusion act, giving power to 
the Government by law to admit a fixed and limited number of Chinamen into 
the Philippine Islands, who are certified to be skilled laborers, on the bond of 
the employer that for every Chinese skilled laborer employed he will employ a 
Filipino apprentice, and that he will return the Chinese skilled laborer thus 
introducd within five yeai-s after his admission to the country, and that he shall 
pay a head tax of not exceeding $50 for each Chinaman so admitted, to the 
insular government, to meet the expenses- incident to the enforcement of these 
restrictions. 

There you have the whole matter in a nutshell. In the first place 
the land is as rich as that of Hawaii and Avill produce three times as 
much sugar j)er acre as those of Louisiana and Texas or the best lands 
of the trans-Mississippi territory. 

Second. It exists in limitless quantities. 

Third. They already have several million natives who work for a 
song. 

Fourth. They asked for and got a SO-cent dollar with which to pay 
their laborers and thus make 50 cents pay for as much sweat as TOO 
cents would if they used our currency, which can hardly be said to 
be in the interests of the Filipino people. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OP THE UNITED STATES. 23 

Fifth. They already get a 25-cent reduction from our tariff rates 
and are demanding a 75-cent reduction. 

Sixth. They ask that the present restriction of 2,500 acres of land 
which can be held by a single corporation be raised to 25,000 acres, or 
30,000 acres if leased, which would seem to *favor the corporation 
instead of the people. 

Seventh. That they be allowed to bring Chinamen in under con- 
tract because they will work even cheaper and harder than will the 
Filipinos, and will tend to depress the Filipino wage rate, which 
surely is not in the interest of the Filipino people. Grant these re- 
quests and it does not take much of an imagination to foresee the 
results, a vast tropical sugar estate worked by semislave underpaid 
natives and contract coolie Chinese. You can not accuse these high- 
minded American officials in the Philippines of doing their work 
underhandedly, not for a moment. Governor Taft frankly says: 

GOVERNOR TAFt's TESTIMONY. 

Our recommeudations are based upon our views of the needs of the Philippine 
Islands and the benefit to the trade of those islands. We are asking as much 
as we can get, because the more we get the better we think it will be for the 
islands. The effect upon the policy of the United States and particular interests 
in the United States that will be affected we have very little knowledge of and 
desire to express no opinion. 

Senator Patterson. You would not knowingly advocate any policy that would 
injure the industries of the United States — your own country? 

Governor Taft. I do not think I would. We do not approach it from the 
standpoint of those interests, however. 

Governor Taft. Of course, these questions are usually settled by compromise, 
so as to injure home industries as little as possible and encourage new indus- 
tries as much as possible. I do not profess to state the opinion of the commis- 
sion on such a question. We are doing the best we can to develop the islands, 
and we want to get from Congress and all opposing interests as much as we 
can. 

Vice-Governor Wright does not even contend that this policy which 
they recommend is sound. In his testimony before the Philippine 
committee he said : 

Of course, I do not think it is proper for me to go into the question of the 
soundness of a policy of that sort. That is a matter, of course, for Congress, 
with which I haA'e nothing to do. 

They have no hesitation in telling Congress what they want and 
frankly state that they are not looking after American interests. We 
have the same right and should exercise it before it shall be too late. 
If you do not think this matter is to be pushed persistently^ before 
Congress and the Administration, read the first cablegram that came 
over the newly laid cable from Governor Taft to the President of the 
United States on July 4. Here is about a third of it : 

It is not inappropriate to incorporate in this the first message from the Philip- 
pines to America an earnest plea for the reduction of the tariff* on Filipino 
products (sugar and tobacco) in accordance with the broad and liberal spirit 
which the American people desire to manifest toward the Filipinos. 

And if this not enough, consider the following from President 
Green, of the American Chamber of Commerce at Manila, to the 
President of the United States: 

May your Administration speedily accomplish abolition of a tariff and tem- 
porary admission of competent labor (Chinese coolies under contract), without 
which Philippines can not prosper. 



24 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Forewarned is forearmed. The continuation of present conditions 
will mean much to the trans-Mississippi territory, and will mean 
that the Philippines will be developed by means of small farms for 
the. benefit of the Filipino people, and that they will eventually pro- 
duce for us those tropical products for which we now annually send 
$150,000,000 to foreign countries. 

NATIONAI/ RECLAMATION ACT. 

We have passed a national irrigation act ; we are about to reclaim 
vast stretches of desert, and as true as I stand here, unless an almost 
superhuman effort is made, we are about to have passed Philippine 
legislation which will largely nullify the effect of the law we have 
have worked so hard to secure. 

A member of his Cabinet, one well posted on this subject, said to 
President Roosevelt the day he signed the irrigation law : 

" Mr. President, the passage of that act solves the matter of pro- 
ducing at home all the sugar our people consume." 

"Why so?" said the President. 

" Because," said the Cabinet officer, " wherever the Government 
builds a dam there will be erected at once one or more beet sugar 
factories, for beets are the greatest crop which they can grow under 
irrigation and ship out the product to our ofreat centers of population 
in the East." 

In five different trans-Mississippi States the Federal Government 
is to-day preparing to spend millions of dollars to put hundreds and 
hundreds of thousands of acres under the ditch. 

Wlien these dams shall have been built and reservoirs filled with 
water and the head sates shall be ready to be opened, what shall we 
plant or sow under irrigation, the surplus product of which we can 
profitably transport to great centers of eastern population ? 

Can We raise 2,500,000 acres of wheat under irrigation, pay freight 
charges, and compete in the world's markets with those who raise 
wheat without irrigation ? 

Can we raise and market the other great staples of the East : Com, 
oats, rye, barley, hay? We can raise several crops of alfalfa a year, 
but Ave can not ship it to market. Can we devote 2,500,000 acres 
to poultry, the great barn yard crop of the East, and market our 
product ? 

Could we put 2,500,000 acres into vegetables or fruits and not glut 
the market? 

No. I tell you, my friends, we can grow any temperate zone crop 
on earth, but there are few we can ship out to advantage, while the 
eastern farmer has a market at his door for every pound of every- 
thing he can procure. 

While the market for all other crops is limited or unprofitable on 
account of long-haul freight charges, we have in the United States 
to-day a profitable market for all the sugar whicli can be produced 
from all the beets we can grow on 2,500,000 acres of these desert 
lands the Government is going to reclaim. Think of it, a profitable 
market awaiting us for all we can produce from 2,500,000 acres of 
desert lands. Shall we without a protest allow this stupendous 
market to be taken away from us and frittered away on a mere 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OP THE UNITED STATES. 25 

sentimentality for a people to whom we are also giving an American 
market for $150,000,000 worth of products which we can not produce? 

Is not that enough? Must we also give them the American market 
for the one great crop which we can profitably grow to the full extent 
of our ability? I hope not. While we all realize our possibilities let 
us also realize our limitations and restrictions. 

I have given you the cost of production with the crude field and 
factory methods in the Philippines. 

FREIGPIT RATES. 

Now as to freight rates. 

As the trans-Mississippi territory manufactures practically all 
the sugar which its inhabitants consume, the 2,500,000 tons which we 
annually import is for eastern consumption and must be marketed 
there, whether produced in the trans-Mississippi territory or in the 
Philippines. 

Geographically, the Philippines are 7,000 miles from our shores. 
Commercially, they are 25 to 37 cents per hundred pounds from New 
York Harbor. It costs more to ship sugar from Omaha and Kansas 
City to New York than it does from the Philippines, and conse- 
quently, commerciall}^ speaking, Manila is closer to New York than 
is the trans-Mississippi territory. 

Hence, if we abolish the dntj on Philippine sugar and in other 
ways greatly encourage its production in those islands, the price 
which the trans-Mississippi farmer and manufacturer must meet will 
be the f. o. b. Philippine price plus the cost of 50 cents per hundred 
for refining, plus the profit of the eastern refiners. 

It will thus be seen that in order to drive home-grown sugar out of 
the market, refined Philippine sugar could be marketed throughout 
the East at a cost of 1| to 1^^ cents per pound. Not that consumers, 
except perhaps periodically, would be able to purchase their sugar 
for any less than they do now, but that is the price which could be 
made without loss to those making it to check and ruin this most 
promising trans-Mississippi industry. 

Owing to the high price paid the American farmer for beets and 
the high price of American factory labor, it now costs us from 3 
to 4 cents per poinid to produce granulated sugar, as aginst 6 cents 
per pound a few years ago. Further, economists will eventually 
bring the cost down to between 2 and 3 cents per pound, giving the 
.consumer sugar at 3 to 4 cents per pound, as aginst the present price 
of 5 to 6 cents per pound and a like price in the future if the Philip- 
pines are to be operated by a few gigantic friendly corporations. 

UNITED STATES SUGAR POSSIBILITIES. 

The next question is. Can we produce it if given a chance? To 
produce 2,500,000 tons of sugar would require the planting of less 
than 2,500,000 acres of beets or Louisiana or Texas cane, for the yield 
is over a ton of sugar to the acre. 

Have we got the land ? Why, almost anyone of the trans-Missis- 
sippi States could put 2.500.000 aci-es to cane or beets and never 
miss it. 



26 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Let me call the roll of the trans-Mississippi States and Territories 
which are already producing sugar. There are nine of them: Cali- 
fornia, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, 
Louisiana, and Texas. In these States there is invested in the indus- 
try over $125,000,000, and the annual product is nearly 500,000 tons, 
or one-fifth of the amount we annually import. 

Already producing nearly 500,000 tons of sugar and being able 
to produce the 2,500,000 which the American people consume, the 
next question is as to whether or not our trans-Mississippi farmers 
and capitalists are anxious to extend the industry. 

Besides the manj^ new factories being erected in our sugar-produc- 
ing States, Idaho, Wyoming, and Arizona have raised the mone}'^ and 
decided to build for next season, while Nevada, Montana, Kansas, 
Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota are taking steps to build, 
leaving only five States and Territories of the entire trans-Missis- 
sippi country where, so far as I know, no move. is being made to join 
the ranks of sugar-producing States. 

Having shown that we can produce in the trans-Mississippi terri- 
tory that 2,500,000 tons of sugar which Ave now annually import, 
that we are already producing nearly 500,000 tons annually, that 
nearly one-half of our States are already engaged in the production, 
that others are preparing to enter the field and still others are 
anxious to enter it, the next question is, "Wliat would it be worth to 
our merchants, our farmers, our real estate men, our capitalists, our 
laboring men, our railroads, and our people generally? 

In the first place, it would mean the erection of 600 new factories 
at an initial cost of $300,000,000, thus giving profitable employment 
to that amount of western and eastern capital. 

Our trans-Mississippi farmers would have their incomes increased 
by $125,000,000 a year for growing 25,000.000 tons of beets at $5 
per ton. Our mechanics and laborers would get $34,000,000 a year, 
our coal mines would get $14,000,000, our coke ovens $10,000,000," and 
so on all down the line, the entire 2.500,000 tons returning us 
annually the enormous sum of $250,000,000 at 5 cents per pound. 

Last year I showed this Congress that where beet-sugar factories 
had been erected in the trans-Mississippi territory the assessed valu- 
ations of town property' had increased on an average of 139 per cent, 
population 89| jDer cent, value of residence lots 59 per cent, of business 
lots 188 per cent, and that the condition of all trade and farming 
interests had been improved almost beyond computation. 

I wish noAv to call your attention to what it does for these greal? 
railroads which have been such a factor in building up the trans- 
Mississippi territory. 

The manager of a small factory in the East gave me the following 
memorandum of what he paid out in freight last year: 

30,000 tons of beets $22,500 

6,000 tons of coal 9,000 

3,000 tons of lime rock 3,000 

2,000 tons of molasses G, 000 

20,000 tons of pnlp 12,000 

8,000,000 pounds of sugar 0,600 

Coke, lime, seed, supplies, etc 1,500 

Total 63, 600 



THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTEY OP THE UNITED STATES. 27 

And, as I say, this was a small factory. Last year the factory 
at Oxnard, Cal., i^aid out for freight the enormous sum of $540,000. 
This is what the factory management paid out for freight. It does 
not include what was j^aid out by the merchants, of whom there were 
none until the factory was erected there. The amount of money 
which the railroads receive from a town for freight affords a pretty 
fair basis by which to judge of the town's prosperity and I will give 
you an illustration. 

ATTRACTS THE PEOPLE. 

In 1899 the entire freight receipts of the Santa Fe Railroad from 
Rocky Ford, Colo., amounted to $97,000. 

In 1900 the American Beet Sugar Company erected a beet-sugar 
factory there. 

In 1902, two years later, the town had grown from 1,500 to 2,500 
people, 400 new buildings had been erected, and the freight receipts 
of the Santa Fe road had jumped from $97,000 to almost $600,000, 
an increase of over 500 per cent in two years. Anyone in the habit of 
studying industrial conditions can easily imagine the tremendous in- 
crease of business which the location of this factory brought to Rocky 
Ford. 

To locate 600 new factories in the trans-Mississippi territory, bas- 
ing the increase on the outfreight alone from Rocky Ford, would 
mean that our great western railroads would secure in increased 
freights $300,000,000 annually. If those 600 factories' are erected in 
the Philippines neither you nor the railroads will get a cent out of it, 
for the Philippine sugar will all go direct to the eastern seaboard to 
be refined, just as it has in the past. 

The question is. Shall we erect 600 new sugar factories in the 
Philippine Islands or in the trans-Mississippi territory? 

Would the gentlemen living in the sugar towns of California, 
Utah, Colorado, and other trans-Mississij^pi territory like to see 
their sugar factories transported to the Philippines? Would the 
gentlemen from the Salt River Valley prefer to see their new sugar 
factory, now being erected at Glendale, abandoned and shipped to 
the Philippines ? 

How about the factories now being erected at Fort Collins, Wind- 
sor, and Longmont, Colo.; at Idaho Falls and at Garland, Utah? 
How about the projected factories at Wheatland, Wyo. ; at Fountain, 
Sterling, Brighton, Denver, Lamar, and Fort Morgan, Colo. ; at Gar- 
den City, Kans. ; at Hershey and North Platte, Nebr. ; at Blackfoot, 
Boise City, Caldwell, and Lewiston, Idaho; at Prosser and at Ya- 
kima in this State, and the scores of other projected plants in the 
trans-Mississippi territory ? 

Does anyone suppose for a minute if we enable granulated sugar 
from the Philippines to be laid down at a cost of 1^ to 2 cents per 
pound, while it costs from 3 to 4 cents to produce it in this country, 
that capital will continue to flow in to the home industry and develop 
the trans-Mississippi territory ? 

I think there can be no question as to both our desire and our abil- 
ity to produce this $250,000,000 Avorth of sugar in this trans-Missis- 
sippi territory, or of their ability to produce it at a still lower cost 
in the Philippines. 



28 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The remaining question on this subject is, Will our legislators yield 
to the demands coming from the Philippines and enact such legisla- 
tion as will steal from you this great industry, transfer it to the 
Philippines, rob the Filipinos of their lands, and enslave them for 
life? 

WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR THE PHILIPPINES. 

And so a word as to what we have done for the Philippines legis- 
latively and as to what the Philippine Commission is asking us to do, 
and I will close. American products entering Philippine ports pay 
the same duty as is paid on like products from all other countries. 
When the rinderpest and surra decimated the ranks of their work 
animals the American Congress appropriated $3,000,000 and handed 
it over for their relief. 

The Department of Agriculture has established a most efficient 
scientific station in the Philippines to teach the natives American 
agricultural science. March 8, 1902, Congress reduced the tariff on 
Philippine products entering the United States to To per cent of the 
duty collected on like products coming from other countries. 

All customs collected on Philippine products entering the United 
States are converted into a special fund, " and paid into the treasury 
of the Philippine Islands, to be used and expended for the govern- 
ment and benefit of said islands," thus reducing their local taxation 
by that amount. 

Philippine products destined for the United States are not subject 
to any export taxes, the producers or shippers thus securing a double 
advantage. 

July 1, 1902, Congress passed an act authorizing the Philippine 
government to issue bonds for the purchase of the friar lands which 
had given them so much trouble. 

In the same act Congress restricted the ownership of land by any 
one corporation to 1,024 hectares, or 2,500 acres, thus preventing the 
absorption of the public domain by a few large exploiting corpora- 
tions. 

Congress also- authorized the Philippine government to coin and 
issue SO-cent dollars, inasifiuch as the employers of labor had been in 
the habit of paying them off in Mexican 50-cent dollars, and it was 
represented that if obliged to pay their labor in standard dollars it 
would double the price of wages, which might be of great advantage 
to the people generally, but which it was represented would be ruin- 
ous to those who employed them. 

In brief, this covers the most important legislation which we have 
enacted for the islands. 

NEW LEGISLATION ASKED FOR. 

It is not to be supposed that the " little brown men " of the Philip- 
pines are the animus for the prolific demands which have been and 
are being made on this Government. This is not tlite case. They are 
to be the victims as well as you. They come from a source more cun- 
ning, more scheming, from men of our own soil, color, flesh, and 
blood. Men in hiding when the nation needs them. Parasites in 
times of peace and coast wreckers in times of distress, wolves who 
hover in darkness, attracted by the scent of spoils. 



THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UKITED STATES. 29 

I am not referring to legitimate capital, which has been one of the 
most potent factors in developing America, both East and West. I 
am referring to that class of capital which asks for special legislation 
and special favors from the Government which will enable its owners 
to thrive and fatten at the expense of their fellow-men and the in- 
dustries of their country. 

When you lent your influence, your money, your blood, and your 
treasury freely and magnanimously to those Spanish isles of both 
Indies, purely in the interest of humanity, j^ou might have been par- 
doned the feeling that a debt of gratitude had been created. There 
ought to have been no question as to who was the creditor and who 
the debtor. 

After freely spending something over $350,000,000 in this laudable 
purpose, is it not a little presumptuous to find so closely following 
this event, with the details still fresh, that you are the debtor, your 
industries mortgaged in addition and foreclosure proceedings begun. 
You were content to sleep on your laurels for a good deed done. You 
are to awake and find that instead of a recommendation you have 
signed a promissory note. 

They are now asking in the Philippines for a right to buy large 
tracts, to import contract labor from China and other coolie districts, 
concessions of tariff, 50-cent dollars with which to pay their laborers, 
and large appropriations for improvements and little or no internal 
taxes, and in addition ask for your market. 

This means that the native Filipino will not be able to get the land 
or have a home. He is to work for coolie wages and be paid with a 
50-cent dollar. This all to take place in the name of humanity and 
under Old Glory. Now, these are the loyal, frugal capitalists of our 
own country. They could invest in the development of the resources 
of their own country, for opportunities are on every hand. The arid 
West would absorb many millions of it and return a good profit. 

But this would require the payment of civilized wages and the ex- 
penses of other civilized conditions. They prefer to go outside, and 
by schemes and pulls avoid any contribution to our labor or institu- 
tions. They are not creative of any labor or wealth, benefits to our 
system, but ask to come in and enjoy with the rest of you the markets 
justly belonging to you who are the brawn and sinew of the country's 
resources and the loyal guardians of its power. 

With Philippine labor to be had for almost nothing and paid in a 
debased currency, remove or greatly reduce the tariff on Philippine 
sugar and you will practically nullify the effect of the national irri- 
gation law. for the production of our sugar will bring us more wealth 
than all of our other irrigated agricultural products put together. 

I am arguing neither protection nor free trade, but as long as the 
smokestacks of New England are jDrotected from the pauper and 
semislate labor of the world, the fields of the trans-Mississippi ter- 
ritory are entitled to like protection from both Europe and the 
Orient. 

Let us encourage our " little brown men " to produce those vast 
quantities of purely tropical products which we can never produce, 
and let us hand down to the posterity of the trans-Mississippi ter- 
ritory the magnificent inheritance of producing the sugar which the 
American people consume. 



30 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

PHILIPPINE TARIFF LEGISLATION AND ITS EFFECT ON IRRIGATION AND 

BEET SUGAR. 

[Address before the eleventh annual session of the National Irrigation Congress, held at 
Ogden, Utah, September 15-18, 1903.] 

The United States is a great country. I have often wondered 
what must be the impressions of Britishers who, for the first time 
leave their island, land at New York and, without lay-overs, travel 
through to the Pacific coast. I recently made this observation to a 
prominent Englishman I was entertaining and he said he could at 
least inform me as to the conclusion of one of them. Two of his un- 
traveled countrymen arrived at New York and began the trip in* 
question. They traveled on and on, day after day, and finall3% when 
they were out somewhere between Cheyenne and Ogden, one of them, 
who had apparently been in a brown study for some minutes, re- 
marked in all seriousness to the other : " James, do you know I have 
lost all my admiration for Columbus? A man who could fail to dis- 
cover this country would be a damned fool, don't you know?" 

It is not an unusual thing for all-wise Providence to reserve the 
greatest blessings and bestow them on this latter-day people. 

This great country, the richest of all the earth in natural resources, 
was absolutely unknown to all the wise men of the world until a few 
centuries ago. 

Our forefathers who landed on and populated our eastern shores 
were content with their new home, and for generations knew literally 
nothing about the country to the w^est of the Allegheny Mountains. 
I regret to say that many of their offspring still know just about as 
much about it as did their great-great-grandfathers. 

The school geographies of my boyhood classed the entire western 
portion of the Mississippi Valley as the Great American Desert, and 
the country to the west of the Mississippi Valley was considered as 
beingj practicallv worthless. 

To-day I have numberless eastern-born friends living on the Pa- 
cific coast who will not admit that the Lord ever got east of the 
Rocky Mountains. 

Eastern people still yarn it on us. A few years ago Bob Tngersoll 
and Doctor Talmadge happened to be going overland on the same 
train. As they neared the Needles, Ingersoll turned to Talmadge 
and inquired : " Doctor, you say the Bible saj'^s the Lord made the 
earth in six days?" " Yes, sir." "And you believe it?" " Yes, sir." 
"And that on the seventh day He rested?" " Yes, sir." "And you 
believe it?" "Yes, sir." "Well, Doctor, don't you think it would 
have been a good plan and that this would have been a good place 
for Him to have put in that other day working?" 

Whatever the relative advantages of the East and West may be, 
we know that no fences or gates are necessary to prevent the^western 
people from flocking to the East, while all the fences and gates that 
could be erected would not suffice to keep many well-informed east- 
ern people from migrating to the West. 

This arid western America is destined to become the richest and 
most highly civilized portion of the globe. 

It is a significant fact that practically all of the great ancient civi- 
lizations of the world had their birth in irrigated countries, where 
a given area will support the greatest number of people. The Baby- 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 31 

lonians, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians, and others were cradled 
in the sands of the desert. 

Arid America possesses all the advantages of other desert countries 
and the additional, overwhelming, tremendous advantage of being 
not in or near the Tropics, but in the North Temperate zone, the zone 
which is the natural habitat of the Anglo Saxon race, which for 
centuries past has furnished the brawn and sinew and the brains of 
the world. Arid America has the still further advantage that it is 
not separated by sea, but lies alongside of and is part and parcel of 
the home territory of the greatest, the richest, the most progressive 
branch of the Anglo Saxon race, the American people. 

Great Britain colonizes in the far away deserts of Africa, of India, 
of Australia, all located in latitudes different from that of the mother 
country. 

The American colonist boards a modern railroad train and soon 
reaches, in the same latitude he was raised in, if he likes, the New 
Eldorado of arid America. 

My friends and fellow-workers for arid America, these are my 
reasons for predicting such a brilliant future for this country we all 
love so well. 

As to our possibilities for agricultural development, the late Pro- 
fessor Powell of the Smithsonian Institution, than whom there was no 
better posted man on the subject, stated that in arid America we have 
enough arable land and enough water to, when married, support in 
affluence — in affluence, mind you — 70,000,000 of people. 

The American Congress, in passing the National Irrigation Act, 
issued the license for the marriage of our streams to our deserts. 
Through the recent selection made by the Interior Department, the 
nuptial ceremony is about to begin in five States and Territories, and 
let us all pray that the wedding bells will not cease ringing until 
homes shall have been provided for those 70,000,000 of people. 

EMIGRATION TO CANADA. 

The next question is, where are those 70,000,000 of people to come 
from? No less an authority than Senator Allison, of Iowa, esti- 
mates that Iowa alone has sent over 30,000 of her sons and daughters 
to the Canadian Northwest during the past two years. 

Think of it, while the East is being inundated by a million immi- 
grants a year, largely the vicious, ignorant pauper scum of southern 
Europe, a single State is annually sending 15,000 of her brightest 
flowers to a foreign land, whose immigration agents openly state 
that they expect an immigration of 300,000 people from the United 
States during 1903. 

There is no true American who would not prefer to live under the 
Stars and Stripes. There is no portion of the British Northwest 
which excels arid America as a place in which to live. 

As long as semi-arid America has a single unpopulated desert this 
state of affairs should be impossible and we must see to it that it is 
rectified ; that the footsteps of those who are the flower of our land 
shall be turned to semi-arid America and not to the British North- 
west. To do this we must retain every one of our present advantages 
and must devise and offer new ones. It is a subject worthy of our 
most careful consideration, and we must and will think it out. As 



32 THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Commander Booth-Tiicker has so plainly pointed out, colonization is 
the necessary adjunct of irrigation and without it irrigation is a 
failure. 

AMERICAN CAPITAL IN CANADA. 

The next question is the matter of capital, -which is required to in- 
duce this colonization and with the colonists develop our resources, 
not simply by putting the water on the land, but after the land and 
water shall have been married, to produce surplus crops Avhich we 
can market. For, if we stop with this marriage, our work will be 
abortive, as it has been in many irrigation enterprises throughout 
this western country. We must produce something, and we must 
produce a surplus of something which we can ship to the East and 
trade for those eastern commodities which we must have, and which 
we can not produce to advantage. Now as to this necessary capital. 
The eastern and Mississippi Valley banks are full of it, and that, also, 
is flowing into the country to the north of us. Senator Allison and 
others assert that during the past two years not only has the State 
of Iowa sent 30.000 people to the British Northwest, but that she has 
sent $60,000,000 to the same territory for investment, and this is but 
an indication of what other States are doing in the same line. 

I hold in my hand the reports of two of our consuls-general to 
Canada, one at Montreal, the other at Fort Erie, one under date of 
October 22, 1902, the other under date of June 26, 1903, in which 
these American consuls give a list of eighty- four new enterprises 
which are being established in Canada by American capital. In the 
case of forty-four of these enterprises, among them some of the 
largest, the capital is not stated. In the case of the other forty, the 
capital is given, and it amounts to the enormous sum of $80,960,500. 
The same ratio would show that over $160,000,000 of American 
capital is being put into these eighty-four Canadian enterprises, and 
this is presumed to be but a mere fraction of what our people are 
investing there. Nor is this all. The list contains such names as 
Claus Spreckels, Marshall Field, N. B. Ream, George Westinghouse, 
Armour, Swift, and others, and they are going into coal, copper, 
and iron lands, sugar refining, oil, marble, lumber, water power, agri- 
cultural lands, hotels, reduction works, manufacturing, and a multi- 
tude of other things which in semi-arid America offer the profitable 
investment of capital. 

AMERICAN CAPITAL GOING TO THE TROPICS. 

Since the Spanish war you have heard comparatively little about 
American development investments. Our capital, and many of our 
newspapers, seem to be bewitched with other countries. You hear 
about reciprocity with Canada and the investment of hundreds of 
millions of American money therein. You hear about Forto Rico, 
the plantations of which have been purchased by American money. 
You hear about Cuba, where $100,000,000 of American money has 
purchased 75 per cent of the sugar-producing lands and factories and 
all of the large cigar-manufacturmg enterprises. You hear about 
the Philippines, where American capital is only awaiting the removal 
of a few legislative restrictions, when it will be ready for investment 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 

by hundreds of millions. You hear of all this, you know of all this, 
but you hear little about capital in our own country, except in the 
consolidation of existing- industries into trusts and the merging of 
existing railroads, which is not creative, but speculative. 

How long is this matter of foreign investment to go on, and the 
great possibilities of arid America to be relegated to the background 'i 

Our capital has virtually absorbed all the Porto Kican industries 
and the bulk of the leading industries of Cuba. It will continue to 
flow into Canada if not arrested. Three hundred millions of it will 
go to develop the sugar industr}^ of the Philippines instead of the 
sugar industrj' of arid America, if the contemplated changes are 
made in the present laws. Can we stem the tide and swing these 
people and this capital to semi-arid America? I believe so, if we 
work as a unit. If we can, then how will we employ those people and 
that capital? With all of our advantages we have some disadvan- 
tages. First, we can not, under irrigation, produce for shipment 
the great eastern staples, such as wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, and 
cotton, pay the necessarily high, long-haul freight charges, and com- 
pete in the markets of the East, or of the world, with similar prod- 
ucts grown in the Mississippi Valley and on the Atlantic coast. The 
same is also true of poultry, eggs, butter, and many other crops for 
which the eastern farmer finds a ready market at his door for 
every surplus pound he raises. We of semi-arid America are barred 
from raising these crops, except for our own local use. If the cost of 
irrigation did not prevent, the freight charges, to bring our products 
to the great centers of population, would, be our railroads ever so 
liberal. Not only this, but all of these crops are already being grown 
in sufficient quantities not only to supply our nation, but for export 
to the extent of over $850,000,000 annually. 

BEET SUGAR. 

There is one crop we can grow to perfection and in such quantities 
as to employ all the people and all the capital we can induce to come 
here for many years to come, and for which we can find a profitable, 
ready, home market in the East, which is noAv supplied by foreign 
importations. Last year the United States importations of raw 
sugar amounted to over 2,600,000 tons. The cost of this sugar to 
the consumer, which includes the cost of the raw product, the cus- 
toms tariff, the cost of refinine;, packaji-es. profits, and brokerage, is 
about 5 cents per pound, or, foi- the 2,000,000 tons, $260,000,000.' No 
use for me to expatiate on the superior merits of semi-arid America 
as a sugar-producing country ; you all know them. Here, then, is a 
profitable home market aw\aiting us for $260,000,000 Avorth of one 
crop Ave can groAV to perfection under irrigation. Now, Avhat else can 
we produce in great quantities and find for it a profitable home 
market? Coming oA^er from Los Angeles I heard an Arizona dele- 
gate extolling the Salt Eiver Valley as a cantaloupe country. Said 
they could produce all the cantaloupes the eastern people could con- 
sume and that the producers could set their own price. I agree Avith 
the first part of the statement, l)ut hoAv many million dollars' Avorth 
of cantaloupes could be marketed before the market would be 

S. Doc. 530, 60-1 3 



34 THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

glutted? Two hundred and sixty million dollars' worth of canta- 
loupes would feed the American people for many, many years ; prob- 
ably for more years than any of us will live. Another delegate 
would turn semi-arid America into a great stock ranch, but as we 
are already large exporters of meats and meat products, we must 
compete in foreigii markets with Argentina and other countries. 
Still another delegate w^as figuring on sending vast quantities of po- 
tatoes and other vegetables to our eastern markets. Another was im- 
bued with the idea of raising fruit, but, with the exception of a few 
specialties, the East raises all the fruit it consumes. All of these 
ideas are excellent, and we should expand the production of every 
one of these products; but let us not deceive ourselves as to the extent 
of the market. The present profitable home market for sugar is 
greater than it is for all other things combined which we can pro- 
duce — 3^es, many times over. 

PROGRESS OF THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY. 

Is the beet sugar industr}" growing? Fifteen years ago we pro- 
duced 1,600 tons of sugar from beets, the first time in our history. 
Last year we produced in round numbers 200,000 tons, worth, at 
5 cents per pound, $20,000,000. Ten years ago it cost 6 to 10 cents 
per pound to produce it. To-day it costs 3 to 4 cents to produce, 
while Germany produces it at a cost of 2 cents per pound. Our 
tonnage per acre has nearly doubled, the sugar content of our beets 
has increased 50 per cent and our. extraction has almost doubled, 
while the factory expense has been nearl}?^ halved. Every indication 
points to a still cheaper cost of production, but it takes time, for it 
is a scientific industry from the preparation of the soil to the drying 
of the finished product ready for the table. In the whole history 
of the industry not a single American factory has started up with a 
full run of beets, a full complement of skilled farmers, or a full 
complement of experienced factory operatives. All have to be 
trained and each locality presents its own peculiar conditions, which 
experience only can master. Nevertheless, while we had but G fac- 
tories six years ago, we now have 54 — largely in the West — and 
others are projected. As a rule the irrigation farmers can secure far 
greater returns from the culture of sugar beets than from any other 
important crop. Capital invested in beet sugar factories yields a 
good return on the investment. The location of a factor}^ doubles 
and quadruples the value of the contiguous farm lands and town 
lots, and builds up flourishing towns in which the merchants, bank- 
ers, and real estate men and others are universally prosperous. 

I venture the assertion that there is not a delegate here from 
semi-arid America who would not contribute several hundred dollars 
from his own resources to secure the erection of a beet sugar factory 
in his home town. Without question this industry is the greatest in- 
heritance of the farmer, merchant, and capitalist of semi-arid 
America. Five to six hundred factories will be required to produce 
the" two and a half million tons of sugar which we now import an- 
nually and the sugar beet territory extends from our eastern limits to 
the Pacific and from British Columbia to the Republic of Mexico, 
hence Ave are all interested in it and all have a chance to get our pro- 
portion of those 600 factories. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 35 

PHILIPPINE MENACE, 

I will say, however, that this great inheritance is in jeopardy ^nd 
without united action we are liable to lose it. 

In the Philippine Islands there is enough well defined cane sugar 
land to supply the entire world with all tlie sugar it consumes. The 
islands have exported in a single year more sugar than all of our 
fifty-four beet sugar factories produced last year. With labor at 
8 to 10 cents per diem, the largest sugar corporation in the island 
was able in 1896 to produce sugar from 22,000 acres of cane at a 
cost of 95 cents per 100 pounds, while from an experimental plot 
they produced it at a cost of 62i cents per 100 pounds. The freight 
rate from Manila to New York is but 25 to 37| cents per 100, or less 
than the rate on sugar from Omaha or Kansas City to New York. 
The islands asked for a reduction of American tariff rates on Philip- 
pine sugar and tobacco and Congress granted them a 25 per cent 
reduction. The islands asked for a debased currency with which to 
pay their ignorant labor and Congress gave them a 50-cent dollar. 

Congress is now being importuned to grant them practically free 
admission for their sugar and tobacco into the United States mar- 
kets; to withdraw the operation of our contract labor laws so far 
as the Philippines are concerned, and allow the introduction of con- 
tract coolie, Chinese labor, and to increase the number of acres which 
a single corporation may hold, from the present limit of 2,500 to 
25,000 acres, in order to encourage the establishment of vast sugar 
estates, to be operated by the cheapest semislave labor in the world 
and compete with our well-paid American labor. 

Once let Congress grant the concessions which are now being asked 
for the Philippines and the 600 beet sugar factories which we hope 
to erect in arid America will be erected in the Philippines and our 
sugar will be produced by semislave Asiatics. The princely inheri- 
tance of supplying the American people with the $260,000,000 worth 
of sugar now grown in foreign lands belongs to arid Ameri(;a and 
not to Asiatic islands, and if we are to save this inheritance we must 
let our legislators know that we are claiming it and must fight for 
it in the American Congress. 

The production of sugar is not as yet a great industry in the Phil- 
ippines. At present the value of their sugar exports constitutes but 
a mere fraction of their total agricultural exports, of which hemp 
alone forms over 69 per cent. We annually consume over $150,000,000 
worth of purely tropical products of which we can never hope to 
produce a pound, and all of which grow to perfection in the Philip- 
pines and form the bulk of her exports. 

Without injury to any American industry, we can and should en- 
courage the Filipino to produce these noncompetitive products which 
we now purchase of other countries and for which we can offer an 
unlimitecl market at all times. 

If with or without reason any of our Western Senators or Congress- 
men decide to vote for Philippine legislation which is inimical to our 
interests, let them do it with their eyes open, fully understanding that 
it is against the express wishes, desires, and requests of their constitu- 
ents, and let them take the consequences. You can not afford to sit 
idly by, lose your greatest industry, and then be told that it was done 



36 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ihrougli either igiiorance or inadvertence. To be safe, you must put 
vour leaislators on record. 



Resolution unan'unouxUj adopted by the J!)'j3 eoii(/re\s, (tsseinhlcd at Ogden, Utati, 

Septenther 15 to IS. 

Whereas the culture of sugar beets is .-ilready one of the most iniportaut iu- 
dnstries of the arid West; and 

Whereas our lioine market now requires tlie annual importation of over 
$100,000,0()() worth of this commodity, the most natural product that can be pro- 
duced under irrisatiou, and shipped in great quantities to our large centers of 
Eastern population ; and 

Whereas under the national irrigation act the culture of beets will afford 
our gi-eatest quick money crop: and 

Whereas it is being urged that the United States Congress further stimulate 
the sugar industry of the Philippine Islands by reducing our tax upon I'hilip- 
pine sugar, by increasing the present limit of 2,500 acres which individual cor- 
porations can now hold to 25,000 acres, and by the introduction of conti'act 
coolie Chinese labor; therefore be it 

Resolved, That we hereby protest against the enactment of any legislation 
which will tend to arrest the full development of the American sugar industry 
by extending further concessions to the emi)loyers of cheap Asiatic labor; that 
we are unalterably opjiosed to the introduction of contract coolie labor wherever 
the American tiag floats, and that legislative agitation or attacks on the sugar 
interests of this country should cease to tlie end that this great industry may 
develop in common with all our other great industries. 



IRRIGATION AND BEET SUGAR. 

[Addross before the fourteenth annual session of the National Irrigation Congress, held 
at Boise, Idaho, Septemlxn- :',-8. 1906.] 

The art of modern irrigation can aptly be compared to the various 
ranges of mathematics. The early settler who constructed a dirt 
ditch that carried but a fraction of the water which flowed by at the 
dryest period of the year and allowed the balance of the stream and 
all of the flood water to go to waste had scarcely scanned the rudi- 
ments of the " arithmetic of irrigation." 

When vast private capital comes to our aid and we not only utilize 
the ordinary flow of our .streams, but construct expensive reservoirs 
in wdiich to store the flood waters, we may be said to have reached the 
algebra of irrigation. 

When the Federal Government was induced to turn its attention 
to our irrigation problems and not only construct dams and reservoirs 
and ditches, but to preserve the forests on our great watersheds and 
thereby conserv^e the moisture, we reached the " geometry of irri- 
gation." 

But geometry is not the highest science of mathematics. To master 
a still higher form of it, however, it is necessary that one first master 
arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, and to master the science of irri- 
gation it is also necessary that one first master the more rudimentary 
forms of this empire building w^ork. 

It is not enough that by forests we shade thg snow-fall from the 
direct rays of the sun ; that as the snow finall}^ melts w^e impound the 
streams in reservoirs; that we lead the waters out over the thirsty 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 37 

soil ; that we thereby produce in abundance all the crops we need for 
local consumption; all this is but the lower mathematics of irriga- 
tion. For our comfort and for luxuries we need and must always 
need thousands of articles which we do not and will not produce, and 
in order to secure those articles we must produce something which 
the outside world needs, something for which there is a practically 
limitless market, something which we can transport long distances 
and there exchange to advantage for the articles w^e require but do 
not produce. The production of such a crop is to the science of irri- 
gation what infinitesimal calculus is to mathematics — the very apex, 
the crowning glory of the science. A college professor might tie us 
all up on infinitesimal calculus as applied to mathematics, and many 
of you might tie me up on it, but as applied to irrigation, I propose 
to make it so plain in one lesson that " he who runs may read." 

POPULATION AND TRANSPORTATION. 

It was but a few years ago that the center of our population was 
located east of the Allegheny Mountains, but it has moved steadily 
westward until to-day it is in the center of the Mississippi Valley. 
Realizing how small a unit of land will maintain a family in arid 
America, I believe the time will come when the United States will 
have as great a population under irrigation as under rain conditions, 
and then the center of population will be located at the eastern base 
of the Eocky Mountains. But unfortunately this will not come in 
your time or mine, and in any event we must always transport much 
of our surplus crops thousands of miles to eastern markets and ports 
of export. We have no problems as to productivity or perfection of 
product, and thus it is that our one great problem in the development 
of arid America is that of transportation of our surplus products. 

PRODUCTIVITY OF ARID AMERICA. 

Without fear of contradiction, I venture the assertion that in arid 
America we can produce more tonnage to the acre and a superior 
quality of each and every agricultural and horticultural product that 
is grown in the United States than can be produced in any of the 
humid States. We produce practically all farm, garden, and orchard 
crops to a perfection rarely dreamed of in other portions of our 
domain, but there are only a few of them v\'liich it pays to ship out. 

Our local market for minor crops is comparatively small, owing to 
the fact that the population is sparse and to the further fact that so 
large a proportion of our people grow what small crops they consume, 
whether they occupy a 10,000-acre ranch or a 50-foot town lot. 

We ship out some vegetables and fruit, but the market for anything 
but citrus fruit is comparatively limited. All America produces 
fruits and vegetables, and a fcAV hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
any one variety dumped onto the eastern market at one time would 
result in reducing the price to such an extent that the product would 
not bring enough to pay the freight on it. 

As to staples, we can raise more bales of cotton to the acre than 
can the South, and far more bushels of wheat, corn, oats, rye, and 
barley than can the humid States of the Mississippi Valley, The 
average yield of wheat per acre in the United States for the past ten 



38 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

years has been 13.4 bushels, and under irrigation we can raise 40 to 
60 bushels per acre; of oats 29.1, and we can raise 100 to 125; of bar- 
ley 25, and we can raise 75 to 100; of corn 24.9, and we can raise 75 
to 100 bushels. We can and do supply all the cereals our local popu- 
lation consumes. We ship out a limited quantity of cereals from the 
inter-mountain States, but, as a rule, we can not produce these crops 
under irrigation, transport them long distances to our great centers 
of population, and there sell them at a profit in competition with like 
products raised in the Mississippi Valley. 

To-day wheat is worth 70 cents per bushel, or $1.16 per 100 pounds, 
in Chicago, but it costs 50 cents per 100. or 43 per cent of its delivered 
price, to transport it from Utah to Chicago, leaving the Utah farmer 
less than 40 cents per bushel delivered aboard the cars. Barley in 
Chicago is worth 38 cents per bushel, or 80 cents per 100 pounds, and 
it costs 50 cents per 100. or 62 per cent of its delivered value, to trans- 
port it from Utah to Chicago, leaving the Utah grower less than 14 
cents per bushel, f. o. b. Oats are worth 31 cents per bushel, or, say, 
$1 per 100, and the freight is 55 cents, leaving the Utah producer less 
than 15 cents per bushel for his crop. 

The best apples are worth $2.50 per barrel in Chicago, or $1.60 per 
100, and the freight is $1 per 100, leaving the grower but 93 cents 
per barrel, or less than 23 cents per 40-pound box for his fruit. 
Should we be forced to produce these crops in great quantities in 
order to exist, doubtless the railroads would eventually grant such 
rates as would enable us to market them in Chicago, in New England, 
and in Europe in competition with the West and South. This would 
mean a narrow margin of profit to us and to the railroads, a sharp 
competition with our eastern farmers, the consequent lowering of 
price for their staple crops, and the building up of our prosperity 
at their expense. 

We feel that we have the right to build up and develop arid Amer- 
ica, and we are fully determined to do so : but we are neither anxious 
nor desirous of waiting a decade for lower freight rates, or of injur- 
ing the markets of our eastern friends and brothers by flooding them 
with all sorts of competitive crops produced by the magic of irri- 
gation. 

Separated by thousands of miles from our great centers of popu- 
lation, our thought should ever be to produce for shipment those 
crops which bring a high price per pound, thus rendering a high 
freight rate relatively low as compared to the selling value of the 
product. It is the following out of this principle which enables 
California to profitably market in the East over 50,000 carloads of 
choice fruits, nuts, wines, and other products. 

Practically all of these California products are produced more 
cheaply with low-])riced labor on the shores of the Mediterranean 
than they are in California, and the water freight rate from Mediter- 
ranean ports to New York are about one-tenth of the rail rate from 
California on the same products. But so long as present cus- 
toms tariffs remain in force, California will continue to reap a golden 
harvest from the sale of her high-priced ])roducts. 

The Pacific coast is raising millions of bushels of grain for con- 
sumption in China and Japan, but since the termination of the Russo- 
Japanese war great areas of wheat are being soAvn in Manchuria and 
Korea, the most modern flour mills are being installed, and that 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 

country, with a fertile area almost as great as the total area of all 
the Pacific coast States and Idaho and Wj^oming, will soon supplant 
our Oriental market for grain. 

ALFALFA AND SUGAR BEETS. 

There's not a person familiar with irrigation in the inter-mountain 
States, who is so ignorant of conditions as to deny the fact that 
should we eliminate alfalfa and sugar beets from our equation we 
would cut out the very heart of our agriculture, ruining not only 
our present prosperity, but all chances for the rapid development of 
arid America. As yet there is nothing to take the place of these two 
crops and afford us a farm product which we can dispose of in vast 
quantities and thereby secure from other territory the money to ex- 
change for their products which we require but do not produce. We 
can live among ourselves, but unless we can produce something which 
other portions of the world require and can find a market for it, we 
can not prosper and develop. Why is it that the prevailing crop 
throughout the mountain area of arid America is alfalfa, a crop 
which is ordinarily worth about $5 per ton, or 2.5 cents per hundred ? 
It is a rare thing for us to put a bale of alfalfa on a freight car. We 
can't ship out a crop worth but 2.5 cents per hundred. Fortunately, 
however, we can feed it to stock, and the stock is worth 4 to 7 cents 
per pound in Kansas City and Chicago. Alfalfa as a direct ship- 
ping product would be a flat failure in arid America, but when, by 
feeding it, we secure a resultant value 2,000 per cent in excess of 
it, it becomes our principal crop, and brings us from the outside world 
the money necessary to purchase those articles we need but do not 
produce. 

In contemplating any great expansion of the stock industry in 
arid America it would be wise to consider the fact that millions of 
American farmers throughout all the States of the Union are rais- 
ing stock, and that they already produce all the meat products the 
American people consume, and in addition an annual surplus valued 
at nearly $200,000,000, which has to be exported and marketed in 
competition with the stock from South America, Australia, and 
Canada. 

AN IDEAL CROP. 

It then follows that if we are to develop arid America at a rapid 
pace and cause little or no injury to any other portion of agricultural 
America, we must have some other crop in addition to those already 
discussed. We should have. 

First, a crop which is adapted to practically all portions of arid 
America. 

Second, a profitable crop for the farmer to raise. 

Third, if possible, a crop which reaches a higher state of perfection 
in arid America than elsewhere in the United States. 

Fourth, a crop which can be produced more cheaply in arid America 
than in other portions of the United States. 

Fifth, a crop for which there is an extensive and a growing market. 

Sixth, a crop which commands a high price per pound. 

Seventh, a crop which will rotate well with alfalfa and the cereals 
and not deplete the productiveness of our soil. 



40 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Eighth, a crop the cultivation of ^Yhich will increase the acreage 
value of our irrigated farms. 

All of these conditions are fully met in the one product — sugar. 

Let us take these points up seriatum. 

First. At an expense of over $40,000,000, 38 beet-sugar factories 
have been located in the States of California, Oregon, Washington, 
Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, and the Territory of 
Arizona, leaving only Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, and the arid 
portions of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas without 
factories, and in all these States they have been grown with success 
experimentally, and the crop will thrive there as well as in the States 
which have factories. 

Second. This year the farmers of these States will receive $20,000,- 
000 for their crop of sugar beets, from which will be produced 400,000 
tons of refined granulated sugar, the gross returns to the farmers 
running from $00 to $125 per acre, with an average expense of pro- 
duction of $35 to $40 per acre. The net profits in scientific sugar- 
beet culture exceed the gross returns from any other crop our farmers 
can raise for shipment in large quantities. 

Third. Owing to our vast amount of sunshine, our cool nights and 
hot days, beets grown in arid America are richer in sugar and higher 
in purity than those grown elsewhere in the United States or in 
Europe. 

Fourth. Owing to our absolute control of moisture conditions and 
the richness of our soil we produce a greater tonnage of beets per acre 
than is produced elsewhere in the United States, and consequently 
can produce them at a less cost per ton. 

Fifth. In addition to consuming all the sugar produced from 
American-grown beets and from the cane of Louisiana, Texas, Porto 
Rico, and Hawaii, the people of the United States last year consumed 
1,840,466 tons of imported sugar, for which in its raw state they paid 
foreigners over $97,000,000, and this imported sugar, after adding 
freight, insurance, import dutv, and cost of refining, cost the con- 
sumers over $193,000,000. 

Seventh. Alfalfa is an ideal crop to rotate with sugar beets, and 
there is no crop known to agricultural science which has such a won- 
derful effect on the productivity of the soil as sugar beets when ro- 
tated Avith cereal crops. I have the record of 35 German farms of 
500 to 1,000 acres each for twenty years prior to the advent of sugar- 
beet culture and for twenty years subsequent to the advent of sugar- 
beet culture, when one-fifth of the total acreage was planted to 
sugar beets. In all cases the remaining four-fifths of the acreage 
produced more of all other crops than did the entire five-fifths prior 
to the introducticfti of sugar beets, the averag^e gain of all the farms 
for all the crops being 48.9 per cent on four-fifths of the acreage. 

Eighth. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average 
increase in value of all the farm lands in the United States from 
1900 to 1905 was $7.31 per acre. This is but one-sixth the increase 
in value of all western beet-sugar lands during the same period, as 
is shown by the following extract from a letter, written to me by the 
honorable Secretary of Agriculture, February 16, 1906: 

111 tlio United States beet culture has occasioned a large increase in the value 
of farms devoted to that crop. Recent x-eturns received by the Department as 
to the value of farm lands iu 1905, as compared to their value in 1900, show an 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 41 

increase in the live years mentioned in tlie sngar farms of the North Central 
States of ^11.89 per acre, and in the sugar farms of the Western States of no 
less than $42.49 per acre. For the entire country the average increase in the 
value of sugar farms was $12.34 per acre, an increase which exceeds that of all 
other classes of farms except fruit farms. 

The fact is that the increase in vahie of western sugar farms from 
1900 to 1905 exceeded the total average acreage vahie of farms and 
farm improvements in every State in the Union, except six in 1900, 
according to the census returns. 

It will thus be seen that sugar beets fill every requirement men- 
tioned for the development of arid America, and I defy anyone to 
name any other crop or any dozen crops which will fill them. 

Of our sixty-six American beet-sugar factories, thirty-eight, or 
60 per cent, are located in arid America and on the Pacific Coast. 
The Department of Agriculture estimates the present crop of Ameri- 
can beet sugar at 518,000 tons, and that 400,000 tons of it will be pro- 
duced west of the Mississippi River. Based on the present output 
per factory, it would require 230 additional factories to produce the 
sugar w^e now import from foreign countries. Arid America now 
produces four-fifths of the entire American beet-sugar crop, while 
the Eastern States produce the remaining one-fifth. Should this 
ratio continue until importations cease, it Avould mean the construc- 
tion of a million-dollar sugar factory in each of 181 of our irrigated 
sections. It would mean the annual consumption of 73,000 tons of 
beets by each factory, for which the local farmers would annually 
receive some $350,000. It would mean that the cash value of the 
25,000 acres of rotated sugar-beet land surrounding each factory 
would in five years be enhanced by over a million dollars, thus adding 
nearly $200,000,000 to the value of the farms of arid America. It 
would mean that the farmers of this arid country would 
annually receive $65,000,000 from the sale of this single crop. It 
would mean that the East would pour out to our farmers, our labor- 
ers, our mechanics, our coal mines, our lime kilns, and our railroads 
the enormous sum of $135,000,000 annually. And it would mean that 
practically all of this vast amount would be expended by us in the 
East in the purchase of machinery, implements, clothing, and the 
thousand-and-one other necessaries and luxuries we require, but do 
not produce. 

TROPICAL TRADE BALANCES. 

To-day our eastern people draw their sugar supply from the 
Tropics, largely from Cuba, Java, Santo Domingo, etc. Those coun- 
tries sell us their sugar and instead of spending the money with us, 
spend it in Europe. Last year we paid Cuba, Santo Domingo, Java, 
and Brazil $204,000,000 for their products and they purchased but 
$51,000,000 worth of our products, spending the remaining $153,000- 
000 they got from us in Europe. Inasmuch as we are perfectly able 
to produce our sugar at home it would seem as though it Avere about 
time that such trade relations should cease. If the eastern people 
will aid us to produce a fair proportion of the sugar they now 
import, we will not be compelled to raise great quantities of com- 
petitive crops, and the benefits accruing to the East will be as great 
as those accruing to us, for the Eastern States will then get back 
in trade as many dollars as they now bury in the Tropics for sugar. 



42 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Under present conditions, the material development of arid America 
is as dependent upon the culture of sugar beets as is the prosperity 
of New England upon its manufacturing industries, the South upon 
its cotton crop, the Northwest upon its wheat crop, and the Central 
Mississippi Valley upon its corn crop. Deprive any of these sections 
of the industries mentioned and twenty years hence they would not 
have been blighted more than arid America would be if robbed of its 
sugar-beet crop, unless we secure heretofore unheard-of rates of 
transportation. 

SUGAR BEETS IN HUMID REGIONS. 

I have endeavored to show you the extreme importance, yes, the 
absolute necessity of sugar-beet culture in arid America if we are to 
develop this country with any degree of rapidity. And while this 
industry is to us a necessity, owing to our geographical position, it 
is also an industry of the greatest importance in humid regions. So 
carefully have the nations of Europe nurtured it that they have in 
operation over 1,500 factories, and with the sole exceptions of Switzer- 
land, Portugal, and Greece, each and every nation of Continental 
Europe produces from beets all or more sugar than its people con- 
sume, and between them they annually export several million tons, 
and now both Switzerland and Greece have established beet sugar 
factories, Portugal being the sole remaining country where the eco- 
nomic value of the industry is not 3'et recognized. Experience in 
those countries and in the United States teaches us that of all great 
agricultural industries in the world, the sugar-beet industry stands 
at the head in making good farmers out of shiftless or " sagebrush 
farmers," as we call them out here. 

The fact is that no farmer can farm indifferently and make money 
out of the culture of sugar beets. If he is shiftless, he must mend 
his Avays or he will lose money on his sugar-beet crop, and when he 
mends his ways on that crop and notes the wonderful financial results 
which follow, he mends his ways in tilling the balance of his farm 
and thereby secures results he never before even dreamed of. As an 
illustration of this, take the case of Saxony. Prior to the advent 
of sugar-beet culture much of the land in that province was only fit 
for sheep pasturage, while now it is one of the richest provinces in 
the Gernuin Empire. The average yield of wheat per acre in the 
United States from 1895 to 1904 was 13.4 bushels, while in Germany 
from 1892 to 1902 it was 27.6 bushels, or double our yield. Similar 
results are obtained in Germany in the production of other crops, 
and the superior yield is attributed almost wholly to the direct and 
indirect influence of sugar-beet culture. This is one of the principal 
reasons why practically every statesman and political economist in 
Europe does everything in his power to foster and spread the culture 
of sugar beets, and why each and every nation of Continental Europe, 
except France, levies the same import duty on its colonial cane sugars 
as upon foreign sugars. (France simply gives off the cost of the 
freight.) 

Sugar-beet culture virtually makes 2 acres out of one. The roots 
of cereals and other crops usiuilly penetrate the soil and draw their 
nutrhnent solely from the G or 7 inches which is stirred by the plow. 
The sugar beet is a deep rooter and when we prepare the soil for this 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

croj) we subsoil to a depth of 12 to 14 inches in order that the multi- 
tude of fibrous roots which nourish the beet root proper may readily 
find their way down. When the beet is pulled these fibrous roots are 
broken off and decay, thus carrying down humus. When the follow- 
ing crops are put in their roots, instead of reaching down but 6 or 7 
inches, follow the multitude of interstices left by the beet crop, and 
thus are nourished by 12 to 14 inches of soil instead of G to 7 inches. 

SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUGAR BEET. 

It is an undisputed fact that the sugar beet is the most scientifically 
bred vegetable in the world. A century ago the discovery was made 
in Germany that a certain variety of beets contained from 5 to 6 per 
cent of sugar, and these beets weighed but 4 to 5 ounces. To-day 
the average-sized factory beet weighs over 2 pounds, carries 15 to 
20 per cent of sugar, and we are able to extract an average of about 
12 per cent of the weight of the beet, or say 5 ounces of sugar per 
beet. In other words, to-day we extract as much pure sugar from 
each beet as the entire beet weighed a century ago. 

But if Europe gave to the world the sugar beet grown under rain 
conditions, arid America gave us the irrigated sugar beet, which is 
richer in sugar and yields more tons per acre. In 1891 a beet sugar 
factory was erected in a region of California, where crops are raised 
both with and without irrigation. The farmers who put in beets 
were instructed by the factory officials to grow them without irriga- 
tion, as it w^as believed that an irrigated beet would be Idrge, but 
deficient in sugar content and purity. Learning that some of the 
farmers were disregarding these instructions, the factory officials 
issued a printed notice stating that they would refuse to receive beets 
which had been irrigated. Nevertheless, some of the farmers con- 
tinued (sub rosa) to irrigate their beets and secured a greatly in- 
creased tonnage of the highest grade product. The facts finally 
leaked out, and as a result of this accident and the location of a fac- 
tory in Utah the same year, arid America will be richer this year by 
the $40,000,000 it will receive for its 1906 sugar crop. The American 
people are never willing to take it for granted that Europe has 
reached the limit of perfection in anything. We have demonstrated 
the superiority of the irrigated beet, and it would seem that the final 
touches in scientific sugar beet production were to be solved by 
American brains and the climate and soil of arid America. Begin- 
ning at the apex reached bj^ Europe, we have brought over their 
best sugar-beet seed and our Government is propagating it in arid 
America. We have already produced from this American-grown 
seed a limited quantity of beets which polarized 25 and 26 per cent 
sugar, and in one case 29 per cent of the entire weight of the beet 
was sugar. As at 5 cents per pound every additional 1 per cent of 
sugar extracted from a ton of beets is worth a dollar, the importance 
of this work can be readily understood. 

After meeting with almost unanimous discouragement from the 
various sugar men I consulted for several years, I had the honor a 
few years ago of directing the attention of our Department of Agri- 
culture to the possibility of a scientific development in this industry 
which, if successful, would all but revolutionize it. The honorable 
Secretary of Agriculture and his scientific lieutenants immediately 



44 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

agreed with my conclusions both as to the vahie and the possibility 
of success and started the Avork at once. For three years they have 
been carryino- on the work and success apjoears to be assured. This 
work is the breeding by selection and pollination of a single-germ 
beet ball. At present the ball of woody fibrous matter which en- 
velops the beet seed incases from one to six separate and distinct 
seeds, each one of which produces a beetlet. These beetlets coming 
up together and intertwining necessitate the thinning on hands and 
knees, as but one beet can be properly grown in a place. Plant but 
one beet ball in a place and the average number of beetlets which ger- 
minate from that ball is three and one-half, and all but one must be 
pulled up by hand. The number of single-germ beet balls in com- 
mercial seed is but a minute fraction of 1 per cent, but in three years' 
scientific woi'k the Department of Agriculture has succeeded in bring- 
ing it up to 50 per cent, and it is expected that in from six to eight 
years more we will have a sugar-beet seed in which this single-germ 
characteristic will be fixed. 

Success in this undertaking means that the farmer will drill in 
his beet seed, say. an inch apart, each seed sending up but one beetlet. 
Instead of thinning on hands and knees just at the opportune time, 
in order to do as little damage as possible to the remaining beetlets, 
he will at his leisure cut out the superfluous beetlets with a hoe, 
leaving a thrift}' one every six or eight inches, and this remaining 
one, instead of being injured by the hoeing, will receive a positive 
benefit. This will mean a saving of about six dollars per acre. It 
will mean the elimination of a laborious class of work which the aver- 
age farmer dislikes to perform. It will mean that the farmer who 
to-day can raise but a few acres of beets, oAving to the fact that he 
is limited by the available labor supply to thin his beets promptly at 
the opportune time, will be able to quadruj^le his plantings. It will 
mean that he will secure double the toimage per acre, as the hoeing 
out of the superfluous beetlets will not injure the remaining ones, all 
of which are considerations of the most far-reaching nature in the 
production of this crop. 

It is not now possible to produce sugar from beets as cheaply as 
it is from cane, and, owing to the cheap peon labor which is to be 
had in troj^ical sugar estates, perhaps never Avill be. But these seed 
developments should greatly reduce the cost of produ.ction, and 
Avhether they do or not, the indirect advantages of sugar-beet culture 
are so great that they have convinced the political economists and 
statesmen of all temperate zone countries that their peo])le can well 
. afford to pay double the price for sugar, rather than to sacrifice an 
industry Avhich is so far-reaching in its economic effects. 

STAI^'^nI^'(; eco>"Omic facts. 

The sugar bills of the American people amount to over a million 
dollars a day for every working day in the year. Last year Ave paid 
to foreigners for sugar more money than AA^e received for all our ex- 
ports of Avheat and wheat flour, corn and corn meal, and all our ex- 
ports of breadstuffs put together, except barley. The sugar Ave im- 
ported last year could have been produced from one and one-half 
million acres of American soil, yet it took the entire cereal product 
from eight and one-half million acres of American farms to pay for 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 45. 

it. Eighty-five per cent of all the nione}^ we sent abroad for the pur- 
chase of foodstuffs Avhich we are capable of producing at home is 
expended for sugar. 



THE AMERICAN SUGAR INDUSTRY— ITS PRESENT DEVELOPMENT AND 
FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. 

[Address before the seventeenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- 
gress, held at Kansas City, Mo., November L'0-:i5, 1906.] 

There are few, indeed, who realize the importance which home 
sugar production has upon the domestic economy of the nations of the 
world, and upon the development and prosperity of this great trans- 
Mississippi territory. 

The use of the cereal crops as articles of diet antedates the Chris- 
tian era by thousands of years, but one of the earliest mentions of 
even raw sugar was in the thirteenth century, at which time it 
sold at 43 cents per pound. The art of refining was not discovered 
until the fourteenth century, and it was not until the beginning of 
the seventeenth century that Queen Elizabeth became its patron 
saint by first introducing its use as an article of diet. One hundred 
and fifty years later, Marggraf discovered that sugar could be pro- 
duced from beets, and in 1801 the first beet-sugar factory was erected. 

In 1840 the world used about one million tons of sugar, less than 5 
per cent of wdiich was derived from beets. In 1890 the world's sugar 
consumption had increased to six million tons, only to be doubled 
last year, wiien the crop exceeded twelve million tons, over seven 
millions of which were produced from sugar beets. 

Last year the people of the world expended a billion and a quarter 
dollars for the purchase of this newdy found article of diet, or nearly 
twelve times the total value of all our exports of breadstuffs to all 
the nations of the world. The growth of no other newly found arti- 
cle of diet begins to compare with that of sugar, and none can pre- 
dict what figures its future consumption will reach, but if the per 
capita consumption of the world were as great as that of the United 
States it would require over fifty million tons to supply it, and the 
annual sugar bill of the world would be over six billion dollars. 

IMPORTANCE OF HOME PRODUCTION. 

Owing to the important bearing of home sugar production on the 
domestic economy of a nation, the statesmen and political economists 
of Europe have so legislated that over $600,000,000 have been invested 
in 1,500 beet-sugar factories, and in all Continental Europe there are 
but three nations, and these of the smallest, which do not produce 
all or more sugar than they consume, while between them they export 
several million tons. 

The 1905 sugar bill of the American people amounted to over 
$328,000,000, or more than $1,000,000 for each working day of the 
year. In the United States proper and in our insular possessions 
we produced a large proportion of this sugar, but in addition to the 
home production we expended over $97,000,000 in foreign countries 
for the purchase of this single product. It took the product from 



.46 THE BEET STJGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

over 8,500,000 acres of American wheat, corn, and oats to settle our 
foreign sugar bills for 1905. 

Our 1905 importations of sugar were equal to the value of 
121.000.000 bushels of wheat at 80 cents per bushel, and this 
121,000,000 bushels of Avheat rob our soil of over $20,000,000 worth of 
fertilizing elements, while the sugar we import does not come from 
the soil, but is merely the rain, the wind, and the sunshine which 
sweeps over foreign fields, and in no possible manner can it replenish 
our soil one iota. 

EXPAND AN EXISTINCx INDUSTRY. 

To produce at home all the sugar we consume does not mean that 
we must establish a new industry, but merely expand an existing in- 
dustry, the huge importance of which is not generally comprehended. 

In the beet-sugar industry and the cane-sugar industry of Louisiana, 
Texas, Porto Rico, and Hawaii there is invested over $523,000,000. 
Compare this investment with the money invested in other American 
industries. 

The 1900 census report groups all manufacturing industries under 
347 classifications or heads. There are but 72 in which the capital 
invested exceeds 5 per cent of the amount invested in the American 
sugar industry, but 41 in which it exceeds 10 per cent, but 15 in which 
it exceeds 25 per cent, but seven in which it exceeds 50 per cent, and 
but four in which it exceeds the amount invested in the American 
sugar industry. The $G,500,000 invested in our 57 tin-plate mills 
is but a fraction over 1 per cent of what we have invested in sugar 
jDlants. Our investment in the sugar industry is eighteen times what 
it is in all our cordage and twine plants, sixteen times what it is 
in all our distilleries, eight times what it is in glass factories, nearly 
seven times what it is in shipbuilding plants, six times what it is in 
silk mills, four and one-half times what it is in our 8,000 furniture 
factories, three times what it is in our agricultural implement fac- 
tories, and nearly three times what it is in all of our 1,100 great 
slaughtering and meat-packing plants. 

ANNUAL OUTPUT. 

Then compare the value of the annual output : Of the entire census 
list of 317 groups there are but 76 the value of the output of which 
exceeded 10 per cent of the wholesale value of the product of the 
American sugar factories of 1905, only 40 groups where it exceeded 
25 per cent, but 19 where it exceeded 50 per cent, and but 8 where it 
was in excess of the value of the sugar output. Last year the value 
of the product of our sugar mills was three times as great as that of 
all our distilleries in 1900, twice as much as that of all our bakeries, 
$91,000,000 more than that of all our breweries, more than half as 
much as that of all our flour and grist mills, and 40 per cent of as 
much as the value of all our slaughtering and meat-packing plants. 

Next, compare the value of our sugar imports with the value of our 
exports of manufactured products. The value of our exports of cot- 
ton manufactures and silk manufactures and wool manufactures com- 
bined would liquidate our foreign sugar bill for only six months; of 
pig iron, bar iron, billets, blooms, wire, wire rods, iron and steel rails. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 47 

iron and steel sheets, tin plate and structural iron combined, for only 
four months; of sole leather, boots and shoes, harness and saddles, 
and all other classes of leather goods for less than five months; of 
fresh beef, for three months; of agricultural implements, for two 
months. 

As compared to the value of our exports of cereals, our imports of 
sugar cost us more than twice as much as we received for our exports 
of wheat and wheat flour, and within $10,000,000 of as much as we 
received for our combined exjDorts of all cereals and flours therefrom. 

Comj^aring the value of our cereal crops with the amount we an- 
nually expend for sugar at home and abroad we find that our annual 
sugar bill amounts to over 60 per cent of the total farm value of all 
the wheat we produce; it exceeds by $50,000,000 the value of all the 
oats we produce, and it is six times as great as the value of all the 
barley we produce. 

GOLD AND SUGAR VALUES. 

Comparing our annual sugar bill with the production of gold and 
silver, it will be seen that our 1905 sugar bill amounted to four times 
the value of all the gold we mined in the United States and Alaska 
in 1904, and exceeded by $62,000,000 the value of all the gold which 
was mined in all other portions of the world. All the gold which 
has been produced in the entire world since the discovery of America 
would settle the sugar bills of the American people for only thirty- 
four years. 

"Wlien it comes to our exports, we find that the amount of money 
we annually expend for sugar amounts to one-fifth of the total value 
of all our exports of every character to every country on the face of 
the globe. Transfer our home sugar industry to a foreign country 
and all the money we now receive for our combined exports of iron 
and steel, breadstuffs, cotton goods, and leather goods will not be 
sufficient to settle our foreign obligations for the one item of sugar. 

W^HAT OUR SUGAR WOULD BUY. 

Wliat the American people pay out for sugar every two years 
would purchase every farm and farm building in the whole of New 
England and leave a surplus of $128,000,000 with which to stock 
them. Our sugar bills for three years amount to more than the value 
of all the farms and farm buildings in Ohio, and $100,000,000 more 
than the value of all the farms and farm buildings in either New 
York or Pennsylvania. 

I am glad to note the awakening of our honorable and astute Sec- 
retary of State to the deplorable trade conditions existing between 
this countrj^ and Central and South America, for since we removed 
the duty on coffee and rubber we have lost over $350,000,000 of reve- 
nue on our importations from Brazil alone, and our adverse trade bal- 
ance with that country has amounted to over $1,350,000,000. 

The total value of our 1905 exports to the West Indies, Central and 
South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania combined, including Cuba, 
Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, amounted to several mil- 
lion dollars less than what the American people expended the same 
vear for the one item of suffar. 



48 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

MUST RETURN TO THE FARM. 

On October 7 of this j'^ear Mr. James J. Hill, in a notable address, 
told the Commercial Association of Chicago : 

We can not coutinue to supply the world and recruit our own resources by 
the methods of trade that now obtain, because the minerals stored in the 
ground do not recreate themselves. Once utilized they are gone forever. We 
shall, with these coming millions to provide for, he thrown back upim the soil, 
the only resource of mankind that is capable of infinite renewal and that offers 
life for generation after generation. This is the all-important lesson which it 
becomes you, as leaders of thought and action, as business men dealing with 
a business situation certain to arise in the near future, to impress upon the in- 
telligence and the imagination of those who follow your example and look to you 
for guidance. 

The period of ransacking the national storehouse to see what can be sent 
over seas and sold nuist be changed to an era in which we shall consider the 
preservation and the improvement of what is fundamentally our chief main- 
tenance. For upon the cultivation of the soil all varied commercial activity, of 
whatever intrinsic form or interest is mainly built, and upon it depend the 
future of mankind and the nature and stability of its instituti(ms. 

In some things we are going backward. The soil of the country is behig im- 
poverished by cnreless treatment. 

To a realization of our position to a return to agriculture, to a jealous care 
of our land resources, both as to quantity and quality, and to a mode of culti- 
vation that shall at once multiply per acre and restore instead of destroy pro- 
ductive qualities, we must come without delay if we are to escape disaster. I 
know of no issue in business or in politics that compares in importance with 
this that looms already upon us and threatens our future. 

It is easily demonstrable that a mere reform of methods of cultivation would 
double the agricultural products each year, adding for the whole country from 
five to six billion dollars to the national wealth, while the resort to small farms 
and the adoption of intensive cultivation would give an equal additional in- 
crement. 

THE HUMBLE SUGAR BEET. 

If Mr. Hill had mentioned the humble sugar beet as the most im- 
portant factor in creating the conditions which he outlined, as being 
necessary to our future prosperity, his remarks would have pointed 
no more specifically to this crop. Over $150,000,000 have been in- 
vested in the sugar industry of the trans-Mississippi territory, and 
the lessons they have taught from Minnesota on the east to California 
on the west and from INIoutana and Washington on the north to Ari- 
zona on the south all tell the same tale. The necessaril}^ intensive 
farming to make the crop a success makes good farmers out of shift- 
less farmers; it makes rich farmers out of poor farmers; it makes 
jDrosperous towns and merchants and bankers and professional men 
in formerly listless communities; it enhances the value of town prop- 
erty, and it doubles and quadruples the value of all farm property. 
On February 16 last the honorable Secretary of Agriculture wrote 
me as follows: 

In the United States beet culture has occasioned a large increase in the value 
of farms devoted to that crop. Recent returns received by the Department 
as to the value of farm lands in 1905, as compared to their value in 1000, show 
au increase in the five years mentioned in the sugar farms of the North Cen- 
tral States of $11.89 per acre, juid in the sugar farms of the Western States no 
less than $42.49 per acre. For the entire country the average increase in the 
value of sugar farms was $12.34 per acre, an increase which exceeds that of 
all other classes of farms, except fruit farms. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 49 

WESTERN SUGAR FARMS. 

The fact is that the increase in value of Western sugar farms from 
1000 to 1905 exceeded the total average acreage value of farms and 
farm improvements in every State in the Union except six in 1900, 
according to the census returns. 

Take the case of Garden City, Kans. Senator Swink told me last 
night that when he went in there three years ago land, including 
ditch rights, was selling at $6 to $6.50 an acre; that a year or two 
ago the best farms were selling at $12 to $13 an acre, and now that 
their new $500,000 beet-sugar jDlant is in operation these same lands 
are worth from $60 an acre up. This factory will consume the 
beets grown on 7,000 acres, and with a five-year rotation means that 
the values of 35,000 acres of land have been increased $50 per acre, 
or a total added farm value of $1,750,000. and the farmers, after 
paying $2 to $2.50 per day for field labor are clearing from $30 to 
$60 per acre, while the average gross return of American wheat and 
corn farmers is less than $12 per acre. 

Of course, we are not all farmers. We have a great population in 
Kansas City, in St. Louis, in Omaha, in Des Moines, in Minneapolis, 
in Denver, in Salt Lake, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, 
Seattle, Tacoma, and hundreds of smaller cities in the trans-Mis- 
sissippi territory, which are directly affected by the growth of this 
industry, while the cities of the southern trans-Mississippi territory 
draw tribute from the cane-sugar industry of Louisiana and Texas. 

The sugar-beet farmers of the trans-Mississippi territory will 
derive from 20 to 25 million dollars from their present crop of 
sugar beets, and practically every dollar of it will drift back through 
our commercial centers. 

AS A PROMOTER OF POPULATION. 

Take the case of Oxnard, Cal. When the American Beet Sugar 
Company went in there to erect a $2,500,000 plant there was no 
population whatever. To-day it is a flourishing town of 3,500 
people. 

The beet farmers within a radius of 30 miles of that factoiy will 
receive over $1,000,000 for their present crop of beets, and the ex- 
penditures for labor, coke, mill supplies, fuel, etc.. will amount to 
another million dollars. Is it any wonder that this makes a pros- 
perous community, which enriches the larger near-by commercial 
centers ? 

And as to the effect on the railroads. Last year the Southern 
Pacific received over $900,000 from its Oxnard offices, there being 
but four points between San Francisco and El Paso — namely, San 
Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Jose — where the traffic 
receipts of the road were greater than from this little new beet- 
sugar towni. 

As to the arid portion of the trans-Mississippi territory, it is ab- 
solutely dependent upon alfalfa and beet sugar for its full develop- 
ment on account of the necessarily heavy long-haul freight charges 
to our large Eastern centers of population. 
S. Doe. 530, 60-1 4 



50 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY' OF THE UNITED STATES. 

FREIGHT PERCENTAGES. 

Based on present prices the freight on wheat from Utah to Chicago 
amounts to 43 per cent of its delivered vahie, of barley 62 per cent, 
of oats 55 j)er cent, and of apples 60 per cent. Alfalfa and sugar 
beets average the farmer about $5 per ton, but the alfalfa is fed to 
stock, which brings 5 to 8 cents per pound in Chicago, and the sugar 
extracted from the beets is worth 4^ to 5^ cents and the freight 
forms a far smaller percentage of the delivered value of the product. 

Of practically every other agricultural crop we produce a sur- 
plus, and the home price is regulated by the price in Europe, while 
to produce at home the refined sugar we now import in its raw state 
would annually put nearly $200,000,000 into the pockets of American 
farmers, laborers, and mechanics. 

The trans-Mississippi territory is the natural place in which to 
erect a large portion of the 300 additional factories necessary to 
produce this product, and the question to-day is as to whether we 
shall build up 300 new and prosperous valleys in this western country 
or shall we allow our heritage to slip awa}^ from us and be turned into 
the hands of a few would-be exploiters of the Philippine Islands ? 

AN ECONOMIC QUESTION. 

Both political parties are divided on this subject, which is an eco- 
nomic and not a political one. In the Senate Committee on the Phil- 
ippines 60 per cent of the Democrats and 62^ per cent of the Repub- 
licans voted against the pending Philippine bill and to maintain our 
home industr3^ A perusal of the printed testimony will show you 
that this majority in each party felt that neither we nor the native 
Filipinos had anything to gain, but everything to lose, by sacrificing 
this great and growing industry in order to enrich a handful of 
American, British, and Chinese carpetbag exploiters. 

The}^' pointed out that we had already spent over $500,000,000 
on the Philippines and were continuing to spend over $25,000,000 a 
year on those islands, with no hope of getting any portion of it back. 
Senator Hale, of Maine, developed the fact that while the Philip- 
pines purchased enonnous quantities of goods from foreign countries 
their purchases from us amounted in value to less than was paid to 
the farmers of one county in his State for their potato crop, and he 
caused the Secretary of War to admit that whatever changes might 
be made in our tariff relations with those islands there was no pros- 
pect of greatly increasing the sale of our goods, as the goods they 
import can be purchased in other markets for less money than it 
costs us to produce them. 

PHILIPPINE TARIFF. 

It was shown that while we collect 75 per cent of the regular tariff 
on Philippine products, every dollar of this money is remitted to the 
Philippine government, instead of being covered into our Treasury, 
while we pay full duty on every article we send to the islands and 
allow them to issue a 50-cent dollar with which to pay their laborers, 
and thus cut the already phenomenally low wage rate in half. It 
was shown that largely owing to this wage rate of IT cents per day 



.THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 51 

the average cost of sugar production in those islands is but 74 cents 
per 100 pounds, while our farmers average to receive $2.21 per 100 
for the sugar in their beets before ever the factory touches them, or 
just three times as much as the total cost of production in the Phil- 
ippine Islands. 

It was shown that the freight rate from Manila to New York is 
24 cents per 100 pounds, or 1 cent per 100 less than the freight rate 
on the same commodity from Omaha to Chicago, 11 cents less than 
from Denver to Chicago, and 31 cents less than from Utah to 
Chicago. 

Even the Cabinet is split up on this important question, and the 
President has so far failed to wield the proverbial " big stick " in 
either direction. 

The Secretary of Agriculture stands firmly by the home sugar in- 
dustry, which in nine years he has been instrumental in building 
up from 40,000 to nearly 400,000 tons, thereby enrichins; our farm- 
ers to the extent of some $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 annually. 

On the other hand, the Secretary of War seems utterly indifferent 
to the interests of the American farmer and laborer, and pooh- 
poohs the question as to the islands causing us any possible injury 
under any conditions. Some public men are like Congressman Lacey, 
of Iowa, who announced himself as a standpatter of Standpatters- 
ville, and was a standpatter on all except sugar and tobacco. 

A MIX-UP WITH BOTH PARTIES. 

The fact of the matter is, it is a sort of mix-up with both parties. 
In both there seems to be a growing sentiment that we should get 
rid of this national vermiform appendix, which performs no func- 
tion, is becoming painful, may become serious, and ought to be cut 
out. Members of both parties see that the sure way to cement the 
islands to us for all time is to divert a few hundred millions from 
the home sugar industry to that of the Philippines, by fostering 
their sugar industry at the expense of ours. They have also dis- 
covered that, with the sole exception of a slight discount made by 
France, no European country makes any reduction on the sugar 
coming from its colonies; that last year Holland, which owns the 
island of Java, which produces 1,000,000 tons of sugar a year, took 
but 12 tons out of that million ; that each pound of it paid full tariff 
duty, and that the mother country not only supplied its own people 
with all the sugar they consumed, but exported 500,000,000 pounds 
to other nations. 

The best teacher in the world is experience, and the best way to 
judge a thing is by comparison. 

Some years ago we entered into a reciprocity treaty with Hawaii, 
which then produced 9,000 tons of sugar annually. 

At that time the very maximum capacity of those islands was 
placed at 11,000 tons and our maximum possible loss of revenue was 
placed at $400,000 annually. 

What was the result of that treaty ? In thirty years the Hawaiian 
sugar production has jumped to 370,000 tons, all of which comes 
here. Our loss of revenue has averaged $5,000,000 annually, and 
is now over $13,000,000 per annum. In thirty years we sold them 
a total of $129,000,000 worth of goods and made them a cash present 



52 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of $153,000,000 in revenue: or, in other words, made them a present 
of $1.19 for every dollar's worth of ooods they purchased of us. 

Now, if the sugar production of Hawaii increased 3,400 per cent 
in thirty years, what could be expected of the Philijjpine product if 
granted like concessions? 

Let us compare the conditions of the two groups of islands. 

PHILIPPINE POSSIBILITIES. 

The total area of the Philippines is eighteen times as great as that 
of Hawaii, Avhile the estimated arable area is twenty-one times as 
great. 

The native population of Hawaii, from which to draw the labor 
supply, was between 40.000 and 50.000, while the native population 
of the Philippines is 7.500,000, or one hundred and fifty times as 
great. 

The sugar lands of the Philippines produce more sugar per acre 
than did the Hawaiian sugar lands when operated in like manner. 

The freight rate from Hawaii to New York is 27| cents per 100, 
and it is but 24 cents from Manila to New York. 

The average wage rate for sugar-plantation labor is $19.76 per 
month in Hawaii and in the Philippines it is but $4.28 per month. 

If, with all their superior advantages, the Philippines would in- 
crease their sugar output no faster than has Hawaii, it still would 
amount to over 4,000,000 tons in thirty years, and the islands have a 
caj^acity for producing over 8,000,000 tons annually, while the total 
American consumption is less than 3,000,000 tons. 

With these facts before you it should not be difficult to determine 
whether our Moses in the Cabinet hails from Tama County, Iowa, or 
from Cincinnati. Ohio. 



THE SUGAR BEET INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

[Address beforo the fifteenth annual session of the National Irrigation Congress, held 
at Sacramento, Cal., September 2-6, 1907.] 

To comprehend fully the vital effect which the production of beet 
sugar is having, and which it is hoped it will continue to have upon 
the development of arid America by means of irrigation, it is neces- 
sary first to revdew briefly the sugar situation of the world. 

Sugar is at once one of the most recently acquired, the most rapidly 
increasing, and one of the most important articles of human diet in 
the world. From its earliest mention until the time of Queen Eliza- 
beth sugar was used only in the arts and sciences and sold at approxi- 
mately $1 per pound. Until the beginning of the last century the 
world's crop of sugar was derived wholly from the cane of the Trop- 
ics. The four decades following the issuance of a decree by the first 
Napoleon appropriating 1,000,000 francs for experimental work in 
connection with the development of the sugar beet were only impor- 
tant in increasing the quality of the beets, for, in 1840, 95 per cent of 
the world's sugar crop of about 1,000,000 tons was still derived from 
the cane of the Tropics. Since 1840 the increase in production and 
consumption of sugar has amounted to 150 per cent per decade, and 
now amounts to 12,000,000 tons (60 per cent of which is produced 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 53 

from beets), for which the people of the world annually expend over 
$1,250,000,000. 

In the early development of the sugar beet it was thought that it 
would only thrive in certain restricted districts in France and Ger- 
many. To-day there are over 1,500 beet sugar factories scattered over 
all but two of the European nations, and they produce one-half of 
the world's commercial sugar crop. 

This string of factories, extending from Russia on the north, to the 
very shores of the Mediterranean on the south, not only supplies the 
350,000,000 Europeans with all the sugar they consume, but provides 
an annual surplus of several million tons which are exported to Great 
Britain and other countries. 

In 1864 the people of the United States consumed but 18 pounds 
of sugar per capita. Last year our per capita consumption was 76 
pounds as compared to 90 pounds in Great Britain, and 7 pounds 
in Italy. 

Wliat proportions the future sugar crop of the world will reach 
is problematical, but if the average per capita consumption of the 
world were as great to-day as it is in Great Britain an annual crop 
of 70,000,000 tons would be required and at 5 cents per pound would 
mean an expenditure of $7,000,000,000 for this newly found article 
of diet. 

It should not be presumed that Europe has so greatly extended 
her beet-sugar industry because it can produce sugar at home for 
less money per pound than it can be purchased for in the Tropics. 
Such is not the case. Europe long since learned the lesson that even 
with her so-called " pauper labor " cultivating the most scientifically 
bred vegetable in the world it was impossible successfully to compete 
with the peon labor of the Tropics, who, from one planting of an 
almost indigenous weed, reap from seven to fifteen annual crops. 
In Europe it is recognized that the cost to the consumer of a pound 
of sugar is of minor consideration as compared to the vast economic 
advantages to be secured by producing their sugar at home. This 
is exemplified by the fact that all European nations levy protecting 
duties on sugar importations, and while most of the sugar-producing 
tropical islands of the world are colonies of European nations not 
one of those nations, with the sole exception of France, makes the 
slightest tariff concession on sugar from its colonial possessions. 
The slight tariff concession which France grants to colonial sugars 
is an amount equal to the freight charges on the product from the 
colony to the mother country. 

Little Holland owns the island of Java, which produces 1,000,000 
tons of sugar annually, it being, next to Cuba, the largest sugar-pro- 
ducing island in the world. 

Holland purchases practically no Java sugar, and the few tons 
which do come to the mother country are subjected to full duty. 
Holland, on the other hand, produces from beets all the sugar its 
people consume, besides exporting vast quantities to other countries. 
The sturdy Dutchman may love the native Javanese, Holland's 
" Little Brown Brother," but his home farmer, his own blood and 
brawn, is closer to his heart than the wily Oriental can ever expect 
to get. 

If our national legislators are looking for a universal pi'ecedent 
on which to construct a fiscal policy for our newly acquired colonies, 



54 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

they can easily find it, for even Great Britain, which, for revenue 
purposes, levies a duty of approximately 1 cent per pound on sugar 
importations, collects full duty on its importations of colonial sugar. 

EFFECTS OF SUGAR-BEET CULTURE IN EUROPE. 

The reason for the adoption of this economic policy by the nations 
of continental Europe are apparent to those who have studied the 
situation. 

In the first place the expansion of the home industry has offered the 
profitable investment of more than $500,000,000. 

Second. It distributes among the people of Europe some $400,000,- 
000 annually, which would otherwise be sent to the Tropics for sugar. 

Third. Thev annually draw from the other countries of the world 
from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 for the surplus sugar they produce 
and export. 

Fourth. They have found that the use of the sugar beet to rotate 
with other crops has reclaimed vast areas of hitherto practically 
worthless land. 

Fifth. They find that sugar-beet culture makes good farmers out 
of shiftless farmers. 

Sixth. They find, in Germany at least, that the use of the sugar 
beet as a rotating crop increases the acreage production of the wheat 
24 per cent, of barley 25 per cent, of rye 15 per cent, of peas 86 per 
cent, and of potatoes 102 per cent. 

There are several reasons for this, but the two main causes are that 
to produce successfully sugar beets the soil must not only be put in 
fine tilth but must be cultivated during a large portion of the grow- 
ing period, and this thorough cultivation has nearh^ as much effect 
on the following crop as it has on the beet crop.' The second main 
reason is that as a rule the roots of crops reach only as deep as the 
land is plowed, the soil underneath being hard and almost impene- 
trable by tender roots. For other crops you plow but 6 to 7 inches 
deep and the roots of your crops draw nutriment from that depth 
only. 

For sugar beets you subsoil to a depth of 12 to 14 inches, and the 
small fibrous roots of the beet reach an even greater depth. Wlien 
your beets are pulled, these little fibrous roots are broken off in the 
ground and through decay not only add himius to the lower stratum 
of soil, but leave innumerable minute veins or holes to the very 
bottom of the subsoiling. 

"When your grain or other crop is put in the next year, instead of 
the roots drawing nutriment from only 6 or 7 inches of soil, they 
follow the little holes left by the fibrous beet roots and the result is 
that in effect you have doubled your soil without buying or cultivat- 
ing more acres, and hence have greatly increased your crop, be it 
wheat or barley or beans or potatoes. 

Like conditions prevail in the United States, and in arid America 
there are still more potent reasons for expanding this industry, which 
is so far-reaching in its economic effects. 

Arid America has and always will have one tremendous economic 
handicap — it is located a long distance from our great centers of 
population, and owing to the necessary long-haul freight charges, we 
can never expect to ship out low-priced products. Wheat, oats, bar- 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 55 

ley, rye, alfalfa and scores of other crops we produce to perfection 
but can never hope to transport and market as cheaph' as they can be 
produced in and marketed from the great INIississippi Valley. Throw 
a bale of alfalfa into a freight car and before it reaches the confines 
of the county in which it was raised, the freight charges amount to 
more than the Aalue of the alfalfa. But take that alfalfa, worth, say, 
$5 per ton, and feed it to stock, and you turn it into a product which 
is worth from $100 to $150 a ton in Kansas City or Chicago, or San 
Francisco, and hence will stand shipment. That is why alfalfa is 
to-day the most important crop grown in arid America. 

The same conditions apply to sugar beets, which are delivered to 
the neighboring beet-sugar factory and there turned into granulated 
sugar which is worth $90 to $110 per ton laid down in Chicago. 

Of nearly every agricultural crop, arid America can produce in 
abundance all that her people will ever consume, but when it comes 
to the production of crops which can be shipped out at a profit and 
exchanged for the innumerable articles which its people must have 
but do not produce, alfalfa and sugar beets are of more value than 
are all other agricultural crops combined — in fact, on the produc- 
tion of these two crops depends the full development of this desert 
domain. 

PROGRESS or THE AMERICAN BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 

And how are we in America progressing in the production of beet 
sugar? In 1888. the production of beet sugar in the United States 
reached 1,000 tons for the first time in our history. When the present 
tariff bill was enacted ten years ago, we had but six beet-sugar fac- 
tories in the United States and produced only 40.000 tons of beet 
sugar. Last year we had sixty-three factories in operation and pro- 
duced 483,612 tons of sugar, surpassing for the first time the cane- 
sugar output of Louisiana and Texas, thus transferring the " Sugar 
Bowl of the United States " from the South to the West. 

Last year American farmers received over $22,000,000 for their 
sugar-beet crop and the industry yielded, nearly as much more to the 
laborers and other employees of the factories, tlie coal mines, the rail- 
roads, the lime kilns, and numerous other classes of American 
industry. 

Our Department of Agriculture now classes it as the seventh most 
important agricultural product of the United States, and yet its de- 
velopment here is in its infancy. 

AN INDUSTRr OF ARID AMERICA. 

While the beet-sugar factories of the United States extend from 
the State of New York on the east to the Pacific coast on the west, 
and while it is generally considered as being a national industry, it 
is the child of arid America, and still is. to all intents and purposes, a 
purely arid American industry. 

The development of the American beet-sugar industr}^ has been 
confined largely to arid America for the reason that I have men- 
tioned — freight. In our eastern States the conditions for the pro- 
duction of beet sugar are perhaps as favorable as they are here, but 
here the industry is a necessity^ while there it is not. The eastern 



56 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

fanner has at his door a profitable market for whatever surphis crop 
he produces. 

The industry has been established in sixteen American States and 
Territories, twelve of which are wholly or in part in arid America, 
and there are but four States and Territories in arid America in 
which it has not been established. 

Of the sixty-three American beet-sugar factories, thirty-nine, or 
nearly two-thirds of the total number, are located in arid America. 

Of the $22,000,000 received last year by American farmers for 
their sugar beets. $15,000,000, or 70 per cent, went to the farmers of 
arid America and the Pacific coast. 

The first successful American beet-sugar factory was erected and 
is still running at Alameda, less than 100 miles from where we are 
now assembled, and its original builder still resides there. 

The largest beet-sugar factory in the world is located in a neigh- 
boring county, and the second largest factory in the Union is located 
in the southern end of this State. 

The first sugar beets in the Avorld to be grow^n under irrigation 
were produced in Utah by our friends, the Mormons, the pioneer irri- 
gationists of modern America. 

Surely no further ])roof should be needed in order to establish the 
parentage of this promising industry. And now that arid America 
has invested $100,000,000 in the rearing and bringing of this lusty 
infant to manhood, she should strive steadfastly to see that his career 
is fully rounded out by producing at home all the sugar this great 
nation consumes and thereby reap a reward which would distance 
any real or mythical king's ransom ever mentioned in history. 

EFFECTS OF EXPANDING THE BEET-SUGAR INDUSTRY. 

Since Congress decided ten years ago to encourage and foster the 
beet-sugar industry we have produced 2,000,000 tons of sugar from 
American-grown beets, for which our farmers have received 
$90,000,000, while $70,000,000 more has accrued to other forms of 
American industry. Had this sugar been imported from the Tropics 
and merely refined in this country, American industry would have 
profited only to the extent of $6.72 per ton, or a total of less than 
$1,350,000. Hence, what we have already done has added the net 
sum of $158,000,000 to the returns of American industry. 

This 2,000,000 tons, however, has been a mere bagatelle compared 
to our importations, which now amount to nearly as much per year 
as we have produced from beets in ten years. 

While during the past ten years we have been producing this 
2,000,000 tons of beet sugar, the revenues collected on our importations 
of foreign grown sugar have amounted to the enormous sum of 
$529,000,000, or nearly one-third of all the customs revenue we have 
collected during this entire period on all other classes of imports 
combined. 

We have needed the money, ar.d it has gone a long way toward 
building our Xavy and supporting our various great departments of 
government. 

During this ten-year period all other classes of food products 
have advanced in price from a minimum of 16 per cent for wheat 
flour to 46 per cent for pork, or an average of about 30 per cent, while 



THE BEET SUGAK INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 57 

similar or greater advances have been made in the price of 'labor, 
coal, machinery, and all other articles produced by American indus- 
try. 

During the same period the foreign price of raw sugar has ad- 
vanced 7 per cent, and the home price of sugar beets 15 per cent. 

Considering all these advances which so materially affect the cost 
of producing sugar, and considering the fact that more than half a 
billion dollars in customs revenue has been collected on sugar in order 
to provide national revenue and establish the beet-sugar industry at 
home, we have naturally to expect a material rise in the home price of 
sugar. But what are the facts? The New York prices of granulated 
sugar have advanced from $4.50 per 100 pounds in 1897 to $4.52 per 
100 pounds in 190(3. or less than one-half of 1 per cent in ten years. 
In addition to this, the retail price of sugar in New York has aver- 
aged to be lower than the retail price in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and St. 
Petersburg, the commercial centers of the greatest beet-sugar produc- 
ing countries in the world. If by fostering this industry of arid 
America an unjust burden has been laid upon any citizen of any 
State in the Union, the figures do not show it. 

The revenues collected have been shared by all the people. East and 
West; the gain to American industry of $158,000,000 has gone largely 
to arid America, and the bulk of it has drifted back to our eastern 
manufacturers in payment of goods we require, but do not produce 
in arid America. 

Had this sugar been purchased from the planters of the Tropics 
practically none of the money paid for it would ever have been re- 
turned to this country. This is evidenced by our trade balances with 
Cuba, Santo Domingo, Brazil, and Java, from which countries we pur- 
chase the bulk of our sugar. "We annually send these countries $-200,- 
000,000 in gold in payment for their products, while thev return to 
us but $50,000,000 and expend the other $150,000,000 in Enro])e in the 
purchase of products which are common to this country. 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPANSION. 

The sugar bills of the American people amount to $850,000,000 a 
year, or more than $1,000,000 a day for each working day of the year. 

In addition to consuming all the sugar produced from the beets of 
arid America and the cane of Louisiana. Texas, Hawaii, and Porto 
Rico, we are annually importing 1.800.000 tons from foreign tropical 
islands. 

Our enormous exports of breadstuffs have naturally been pointed 
to with pride for many years past, but notwithstanding our large 
home sugar industry on the mainland and in our island possessions, 
in 1905, aside from the receipts for our barley exports, it required 
more money to settle our foreign raw sugar bills than all we received 
for all our exports of breadstuffs and preparations of breadstuffs, 
including corn and corn meal, oats and oat meal, rye and rye flour, 
and wheat and wheat flour combined. 

It took the value of all the wheat we raised on 8.500.000 acres, or 
one-fifth of the entire wheat acreage of the United States, to pay for 
the sugar we imported from foreign lands and which we could have 
produced on 1.500,000 acres of American sugar beets. As a nation 
we would have *' broke even,'' as the saying goes, if we had given up 



58 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

8,500,000 acres of wheat sowings, planted a million and a half acres 
of it to sugar beets and allowecl the other 7,000,000 acres to lie fallow 
or have turned it into golf links. 

To produce this sugar at home would mean the investment of 
$300,000,000 to $400,000,000 in the erection of several hundred addi- 
tional beet-sugar factories and the consequent building up of a like 
number of prosperous communities. 

EFFECT OF PAST LEGISLATION. 

Ten years ago it looked as though we were in a fair way to pro- 
duce by this time all the sugar we consume. 

During the first five years of this ten-year period capital rushed 
headlong into the industry, but the farmers were apathetic, for it was 
a new crop. Capitalists increased the number of factories 600 per 
cent in five years, while the farmers increased their sowings but 150 
per cent. The projectors of new factories were crying for more beets, 
and any reasonably good community that offered contracts for from 
1.000 to 2,000 acres of beets could secure the erection of a $500,000 
or a $1,000,000 factory. 

During the second five j^ears of this period the reverse conditions 
have prevailed. The farmers have increased their plantings nearly 
600 per cent, while the capitalists have increased the number of fac- 
tories less than 100 per cent, and to-day scores of excellent locations, 
especially in arid America, offering 5,000 to 6,000 acres, signed up 
for five and six years, are unable to induce capitalists to give them a 
second thought or to invest a dollar. Last year alone our beet-sugar 
output increased 50 per cent, and yet there is being erected in the 
entire United States but one new plant for the coining campaign. 

Five years ago the sugar output per factory averaged but 2,500 
tons, while last year it averaged over 7,500 tons. 

The apathy concerning the industry has been shifted from the 
minds of the farmers to the minds of the capitalists. At first thought 
it seems strange that capitalists would pour millions into the industry 
when beets were not to be had, while now, with offers of more beets 
than they can slice, they refuse to invest. Xaturally there must be a 
cause for this reversal of conditions. The present zeal of the farmers 
to grow beets comes from their having learned that the culture of 
sugar beets pays better than that of any other crop. 

The apathj' of the capitalists was first caused bj' our annexation of 
Hawaii and Porto Eico and the loAvering of the duty on Cuban sugar 
and thereby admitting free, or at a reduced rate of duty, over 
2,000,000 tons of sugar per annum. When the agitation for the free 
entry of Cuban sugar began, eighty-six new beet-sugar factories to 
cost" $50,000,000 were in course of organization. All were immedi- 
ately abandoned and but six of them have since been revived. As a 
result of such legislation, capital has seen the Hawaiian sugar crop 
increase from 9,000 to 400,000 tons, the Porto Rican crop from 35,000 
to 220.000 tons, and the Cuban crop from a few hundred thousand to 
1,500,000 tons, all of which naturally comes to this country, thereby 
reducing the prospective market for a like amount of home-grown 
beet sugar. 

NearTv $250,000,000 of American money which should have gone 
into the" home sugar industry has been diverted to the sugar industry 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 59 

of those islands by reason of our legislation favoring their sugar 
product, for there it can secure cheap labor, while here it can not. 
Do you wonder that capital hesitates? If the more than 2,000,000 
tons of sugar now annually produced in these islands by means of 
American capital were being produced in the United States, Ameri- 
can industr}^ would be profiting to the extent of over $170,000,000 
annually. 

EFFECT OF ANTICIPATED LEGISLATION. 

But. it is not past but anticipated legislation which to-day so 
securely bars the doors and is preventing capital from embarking in 
this industry of arid America. 

It can stand what has been done, but it fears the future. It sees 
American troops in Cuba, and the efforts which are being made by 
the American sugar producers in that island for its annexation and 
the free admittance of their sugar to this market, and capital knows 
that Cuba is capable of producing 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 tons of 
sugar at a less cost than sugar can be produced in the United States 
from either beets or cane. 

More than all, just as beet-sugar capital had begun to get its " sec- 
ond wind " after being hit by free tropical sugar from both sides of 
the world and was gradually returning to the industry, acute agita- 
tion for the free introduction of Philippine sugar gave it a body 
blow from which it has not yet recovered. These astute, well-in- 
formed men of millions know that the arable area of the Philippines 
is five times as great as is the combined area of Cuba, Porto Rico, 
and Hawaii, and that the population is four times as great. They 
know that while the prevailing wage rate on the sugar-beet farms 
of the United States is $40 to $65 per month, on the cane fields of 
Porto Rico $13, in Hawaii $20, and in Cuba $20 to $26 ; in the Philip- 
pines it is but $4.29 per month. They know that while we already 
produce more sugar than we consume west of the Missouri River, 
and must ship our surplus east at a freight rate of 60 cents per 100 
from the Pacific coast, 35 cents from Denver, and 25 cents from 
Omaha to Chicago, the freight rate on the same commodity from 
Iloilo and Manila to New York is but 24 cents per 100 pounds. They 
know that even with the crudest methods of cultivation and milling 
now prevailing in the Philippines — whereby there is secured a yield 
of half a crop of cane, whereby one-half of the juice of this half crop 
is lost in extraction and nearly one-half of the remaining juice is 
lost in the boiling — the Philippines yet are able to lay down sugar in 
the port of New York at a cost far less than the amount the farmers 
of arid America are now receiving for the sugar in their beets before 
ever the factory has touched them. 

They know that with modern mills and methods in the Philippines 
and the free entry of Philippine sugar to our market it would soon 
be impossible for the American factories to pay a dollar a ton for 
beets, and that our farmers could not produce them at that price. 
Starting with but one-eighteenth the area and one one-hundred-and- 
sixtieth of the population, they have seen the sugar crop of Hawaii 
increase over 4,000 per cent as a result of legislative favors similar 
to those which are being demanded for the Philippines, which de- 
mands include the free entry of their sugar to our markets, the 



60 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

importation of contract coolie Chinese labor, and the raising of the 
present acreage limit of corporate sugar estates from 2.500 to 25,000 
acres. 

For four years past capital has observed our Secretary of War 
lobbying for one or the other or all of these bills at every session of 
Congress, and is aware of his declarations that until it is secured he 
will continue to labor for it at every session of Congress so long as he 
is in public office. 

These are the unsettled conditions which exist to-day and which 
have stopped absolutely the erection of new factories. 

Five years ago the expansion of the industry rested largel,v with 
the farmers. The farmers have since come to the front with the beets 
and the output of sugar per factory has been increased over 200 per 
cent. As a rule the existing factories are to-day being operated to 
their limit. They can handle no more beets, while the farmers are 
begging for new factories, in the erection of which exists the only 
possibility of expanding the industry. 

Not until Congress abandons its hesitating, its vacillating policy 
and assures capital in so far as it can as to whether it will once and 
for all take to its bosom the naked peon half savage of the Orient, or 
the intelligent, well-housed farmer of its own flesh and blood, not 
until that time can we expect to see new sugar factories plastered 
all over arid America, or else see them plastered all over the Philip- 
pine Islands. 

PHILIPPINE FALLACIES. 

Advocates of Philippine tariff reduction state that sugar and 
tobacco are the principal productions of the islands, and that our gen- 
eral tariff on Philippine products is the prime factor which induces 
prosperity or depression throughout the archipelago; concealing the 
fact that over 76 per cent of the islands' total exports are already per- 
mitted to enter our ports absolutely free of duty, and that 82 per cent 
of Philippine products actually entering our ports pass through our 
custom-houses without being subjected to the imposition of any duty 
whatsoever. 

They represent that by collecting a duty on Philippine products 
we are profiting at the expense of our ^ wards:" but they fail to state 
that on the 16 per cent of Philippine products on which we collect any 
duty whatever, we collect but 75 per cent of the regular tariff rates 
imposed upon like products coming from other countries, and that the 
entire 75 per cent so connected does not go into our Treasury at all, 
but is covered into a special fund and remitted to the Philippine gov- 
ernment, tht^reby reducing by that amount the burden of local taxa- 
tion imposed upon the Filipino people, while American products 
entering the Philippines are subjected to the imposition of their 
maximum rates of duty. 

And how does this work out? We afford them a market for one- 
half of their exports, and as Senator Hale developed when he had 
Secretary Taft before the Philippine Committee of the Senate, of 
their $30,000,000 worth of annual imports, the value of the portion 
which they buy of us amounts to less than the farmers of one county 
in Maine annually receive for the one crop of potatoes. 

They lead the American people to believe that agriculture through- 
out the archipelago is prostrated because Congress fails to eliminate 



THE BEET SUGAE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 61 

the tariff on their sugar and tobacco ; but they fail to state that 90 
per cent of all the sugar and 80 per cent of all the tobacco grown in 
the Philippines is at present produced on two of the 3,141 islands 
comprising the group, and hence if the statements of the friends of 
Philippine tariff* reduction are accepted we must take it for granted 
that a futrher tariff reduction on these two products grown on two 
islands (and those not the largest in the archipelago) is going to 
bestow everlasting peace and prosperity on the people of the other 
3,139 islands, which have as much to do with the production of the 
sugar and tobacco crop of the Philippines as the people of Maine 
have to do with the production of the wheat crop of the United 
States. 

They tell us that the distress is general, and would be immediately 
relieved by the passage of a bill granting free access of their sugar 
and tobacco to our markets; but they fail to state that less than 
280,000 acres, or only 7.7 per cent of the 3,247,112 acres now under 
cultivation in the Philippines, are devoted to sugar and tobacco, and 
thus we must stupidly believe that a further concession made on the 
products raised on these 280,000 acres will eternally enrich the people 
who are raising other crops on some three million other acres. 

They tell us that the passage of a bill removing our tariff on their 
sugar and tobacco would gain for us the confidence of the entire 
Filipino population in our benevolent intentions; but they fail to 
state that of the 7,635,000 inhabitants of the Philippine Islands less 
than 80,000 — or about 1 per cent — are engaged in the production and 
manufacture of sugar and tobacco, and so we must further tax our 
credulity and blindly believe that the enrichment of a few foreign 
and other planters who employ 80,000 peon laborers at an average 
wage of $4.29 per month will in some occult manner bring joy and 
plenty to the remaining 7,5.55,000 Filipinos who are peacefully en- 
gaged in the production of hemp, cocoanuts, and other crops. 

They tell us that the small amount of sugar produced in the Phil- 
ippine Islands could have no appreciable effect on the expansion of 
the home sugar industry if all of it were unloaded on our markets; 
but they fail to state that, while" less than a million and a half acres 
planted to either cane or beets will produce an amount of sugar equal 
to our entire importation, in the Philippine Islands are 60,000,000 
acres of uncleared arable land, owned by the colonial government, a 
large portion of which is as rich sugar land as is to be found in the 
world, and that one of the main objects of the proposed legislation is 
to enable the Philippine government to parcel out a portion of 
this vast area in 25,000-acre blocks to sixty corporate sugar estate 
exploiters. 

The sugar and tobacco industries are as yet side issues in the 
Philippines, but they have the area, the soil, the climate, the popula- 
tion, the freight rate, and the infinitesimal wage rate absolutely to 
swamp the home industry, as they have already arrested its develop- 
ment, if we accede to the demands of would-be American exploiters 
who are so actively urging the passage of this legislation. 

It is " up to you " to advise your Representatives in Washington as 
to your desires in this matter, in order that they may intelligently 
carry them out. and you can not do it too soon for your own protec- 
tion!^ for there will be no use of locking the barn after the horse has 
been stolen. 



62 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE— ITS DEVELOPMENT 
UNDER HON. JAMES WILSON. 

[Address before the eighteenth annual session of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Con- 
gress, held at Muskogee, Okla., November 19-22, 1907.] 

President Loveland. Gentlemen of the congress, we have an ardent 
supporter of this congress, a faithful worker in this congress for 
many years, who, at the personal request of j'our . president, pre- 
pared an article on one of the most important industries in the trans- 
Mississippi section, and I will call upon Hon. Truman G. Palmer, 
secretary of the American Beet-Sugar Association, to tell you some- 
thing of the beet-sugar industry, which is of such great importance 
to so many of our gi'eat trans-Mississippi States. [Applause.] 

Address of Truman G. Palmer on " The Department of Agricul- 
ture." 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow Delegates to the 
Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress: The science of agriculture 
and the character, extent, and importance of the work of our Federal 
Department of Agriculture, are probably less appreciated than those 
in almost any other line of human endeavor. 

While Congress is appropriating nearl}^ a billion dollars annually 
for the construction of battle ships, for maintaining an army in the 
far-off Philippines, and for a multitude of other purposes which 
yield us no revenue, but on the contrary load us down with a greater 
and greater annual burden, it grudgingly grinds out an appropria- 
tion of less than 1 per cent of this amount for agriculture, which 
always has and always will furnish the wealth to foot these enormous 
expenditures. 

Ages ago we were told that " the first shall be last and the last 
shall be first," and perhaps the time will come when, whatever trim- 
ming may be necessitated on other appropriation bills, agriculture 
will have as many millions as its chief can profitably employ. 

It is not often that people stop to consider the fact that the quality 
and the yield of practically every seed, slip, bulb, and tree which 
we put in the ground is the result of the most fascinating, and by 
far the most important, science in the world. 

Many of us enjoy a " New England boiled dinner " occasionally, 
but how few stop to think that a few generations ago the vegetables 
employed in it were merely tough, fibrous, unedible wild roots. 

The wild, uncultivated lettuce, for instance, has a few long, flat, 
slender, light green leaves, which look something like mullen leaves, 
and they lie as close to the ground as do those of the dandelion. 
This worthless, uninviting weed of the fields has been so transformed 
by scientists that to-day it is our most popular relish, pleasing to the 
eye as well as to the palate ; and if you will step into the Government 
greenhouses at Washington you can see the original weed and observe 
the work which is still being carried on in crossing it with numerous 
domesticated species in the effort to produce a still more attractive 
variety. 

So it is throughout both the vegetable kingdom and the animal 
kingdom. To-day we " build " a steer as much as we build a house, 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 

breeding on weight where it is worth the most money per pomi'd, 
and breeding off weight where it is worth the least money per pound. 

There are no limitations to the work, no possibility of ever reach- 
ing the apex, but each forward step adds millions and some of them 
hundreds of millions of dollars to our material wealth and pros- 
perity. To some of these I will allude later on. 

Considering the early history of the Department of Agriculture, 
it is not to be wondered at that some misinformed people imagine 
that, tucked up under the roof of the Patent Office, there peacefully 
reposes a fiat-top pine desk and a few gunny sacks of garden seeds 
over which swings a strip of pasteboard bearing the inscription, 
" Department of Agriculture." 

Nor is it strange that in their imagination the principal business 
of Secretary Wilson and his one or two clerks is to do up neat little 
packages of seeds and dole them out to Congressmen from the rural 
districts to send to their farmer constituents. 

Time was, and not so very long ago at that, when this impression 
was true in the main, and the forging ahead by this gTeat Department 
has been unaccompanied by any blare of trumpets such as is fre- 
quently heard from other house tops. 

When the Secretary of the Navy asks for an extra forty million 
dollars to add five new- battle ships to our fleet in order that the great 
good may be accomplished of aweing the world with our greatness; 
or when the Secretary of War asks for a few extra tens of millions in 
order to send more troops to the Philippines to impress the natives 
with our benevolent intentions, the whole world hears of it. But 
when at a cost of a few thousand dollars the Secretary of Agriculture 
annexes to our products a new variety of plant which adds twenty- 
five or fifty million dollars a year to the wealth of the nation, few 
people ever hear of it. Yet this is what is going on day after day 
and year after year and the agTicultural wealth and prosperity so 
produced is what makes it possible for our other Secretaries to secure 
their vast annual appropriations. 

HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT. 

From the establishment of this Government until 1839, the science 
of agriculture received no consideration in the appropriation bills 
passed by Congress and the present Department of Agriculture is 
the outcome of a suggestion made in that year by the Hon. Henry L. 
Ellsworth, of Connecticut, then Commissioner of Patents. At Mr. 
Ellworth's suggestion. Congress appropriated $1,000 for the purpose 
of collecting and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investi- 
gations, and preparing agricultural statistics. 

The work was continued from j^ear to year by the various Commis- 
sioners of Patents until 18G2, when Congress provided for an inde- 
pendent commissioner. 

For the next quarter of a century, during which period much of 
this great trans-Mississippi territory was being opened up and 
brought under the plow, the Federal work in behalf of this greatest 
of all industries was confined to the meager efforts of a commissioner, 
who, of course, was not entitled to a seat with the President's official 
family of advisors. 



64 THE BEET SUGAR, INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In 1889 Congress raised the Department to the first rank, making 
its head a member of the Cabinet, and appropriated about $1,000,000 
for carrying on the work. 

Congress was willing to appropriate a million or so a year for this 
Department, but the heads of it found it difficult to devise uses for 
even such a small amount, and year after year the unexpended por- 
tion of the apropriation was returned to the general Treasury. 

Notwithstanding this lethargy, much immediate good was accom- 
plished and the foundation was laid for greater things in the future 
when some one should be found who would grasp the golden op- 
portunity set before him. 

During the period in which we were paying so little attention to 
scientific agriculture, but were multiplying our so-called sage brush 
farmers by the millions, European nations had been devoting much 
attention to the subject and had built up great departments of agri- 
culture, so that as their population became more and more dense and 
the farms smaller and smaller, the increased production per acre 
through better farming methods and the introduction of new crops 
enabled them not only to maintain but to raise their standard of 
living. 

THE DEPAKTMENT UNDER JAMES WILSON. 

William INIcKinley was not a farmer, but he was a student who 
thoroughly appreciated the economic importance of agricuhure to 
this nation. 

Ever since their Congressional days, McKinley had known James 
Wilson intimately, and when in 189() he was elected President, he 
decided that Wilson should have the portfolio of agriculture and 
would not take no for an answer. 

Wilson had served the people of his State both in the legislature, 
in Congress, and as president of the Iowa State Agricultiu-al College. 
He had retired from public life with the full determination never 
to reenter it, and was peacefully engaged in operating his extensive 
Iowa farm on purely scientific principles. McKinley succeeded, 
however, and Wilson went into his Cabinet. 

From this time on the chronic anaemic condition of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture began to yield as the rich red blood was pumped 
into its veins. Wilson's desire was to extend the ramifications of the 
Department not only throughout this country, but throughout the 
world, and thus lay at our farmers' feet the seed, the slips, the trees, 
the bulbs, from every civilized portion of the globe. He wished to 
teach our farmers how best to produce both foreign and native prod- 
ucts, how to conserve our soil fertility, our forests, and our moisture. 

INCREASED APPROPRIATIONS. 

But all of this meant scientists and explorers and chiefs of bu- 
reaus and clerks and stenographers and huge amounts of printed 
matter to disseminate the information gathered, all of Avhich would 
require vast sums of mone3^ The customary million or so Avould not 
go very far toAvard carrying out his ideas. It would not even enable 
him to make a start at it; Congress must be induced to double the 
regular appropriation at least, or he would be compelled to adopt 
the easy-going methods of his predecessors. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 

He appealed to Congress for more money for the use of nearly 
every bureau in the Department. He was called before the House 
and Senate Committees on xVgriculeure to explain why he asked for 
an additional $25,000 for this bureau. $50,000 for that one, and a still 
larger addition for another. 

The older members of these committees Avere only familiar with 
the easy-going methods which had prevailed, and they were unable 
to understand how a new man could make good use of such large 
increases. However, even what he asked for did not amount to much 
when compared to what the other Departments- were getting, and 
partly out of curiosity to see what he really would do with the money, 
they thought they would humor him once, and gave him nearly all 
he asked for. 

Fact is, they have been humoring him ever since, for with each 
succeeding year he asks for more and more money, until now he is 
getting eight millions a year, almost enough to build one battle ship, 
and Congress begins to realize that every million exjDended in this 
direction is adding ten, or twenty, or fifty millions to the wealth of 
the nation. 

The appropriations for the different bureaus have been doubled 
and tripled and quadrupled, and in many cases far more than that. 

As an illustration, take the case of forestry, concerning wdiich 
important subject we have heard much in recent years. Wilson was 
familiar with forestry work throughout the world, and was fully 
alive to its vast importance not only to our present population, but 
more especially to future generations. 

In 1897 the agricultural appropriation bill carried but $20,000 for 
this Bureau of Forestry. By 1900 it had been doubled. In five 
years, or in 1902, it was increased to nearly $150,000; then to 
$254,000: $329,000: $400,000: $793,000: $1,000,000: and for the 
present year it will be $1,380,000. which is $200,000 more than the 
total appropriation for the entire Department in 1890, and as com- 
pared with the 1897 appropriation for this bureau, is an increase of 
6,900 per cent. 

In 1897 the total number of employees of the Department, both in 
Washington and elsewhere, was 2,444. At that time the chiefs of 
bureaus had whole suites of rooms and the clerks were so far apart 
they looked lonesome, while all seemed idle and listless. 

To-day every room in the building is crowded with clerks and 
stenographers who are huddled in as close as ants in a hill, while 
the chiefs must content themselves with a tucked up little office, or 
with desk room among numerous assistants. A multitude of small 
annex buildings have been constructed, so many in fact it looked at 
one time as though they would soon be scattered all over the Mall. 
These buildings were filled to overflowing as fast as erected. In 
addition to this, a large building had to be rented for the Bureau of 
Chemistry, another for the Bureau of Soils, another for the Bureau 
of Forestry, another for a seed warehouse, another for pure food 
work, and dozens of others for other bureaus, until to-day the Depart- 
ment of i^griculture is so spread about that some of the bureaus are 
from a half mile to a mile apart, and the Department, in addition 
to occupying all of its own buildings, is paying out some $50,000 a 
year in rentals. 

S. Doc. 530, 60-1 5 



66 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES, 

A magnificent new, white marble building for the Department is 
in course of construction and it is the pride of the Secretar3^ But 
since it was begun, a couple of 3^ears ago, the Department has grown 
so that instead of tearing down the old building, as was contemplated, 
there won't be room in the new building to care for the bureaus 
which are scattered about the city in rented buildings. 

The Department now employs over 9,100 people, and all who are 
located in Washington are crowded almost beyond endurance. Of 
the total number of employees, 2,023 are scientists, ranking at the 
head of their proferssions. Some of these men are located in Wash- 
ington, others are scattered about the country studying all sorts 
of agricultural problems, while others are ransacking every portion 
of the civilized world for seeds and plants and trees and bulbs and 
methods which can be used to advantage in this country. 

No other governmental Dei^artment, college, or private institution 
in the world employs such a number of scientists or scientific 
specialists of greater ability, be they chiefs or assistants, and recog- 
nizing the United States Department of Agriculture as the foremost 
institution of its kind in the world, the nations of Europe are now 
sending their scientists here seeking information. 

Supplemented by the effort of able assistants, this accomplishment 
of ten years of labor is the result of competent administrative ability, 
without which no great enterprise Avas ever created. 

Two-thirds of our entire national revenues are expended for wars, 
past and future, while less than 1 per cent of it is spent for the direct 
benefit of agriculture, which always has and always will replenish 
our war chests. 

For the direct benefit of our 40,000,000 rural population, Ave are 
expending 20 cents per capita per annum but $1,39 per farm or less 
than 1 cent per acre and the value of our present crop alone ($7,500,- 
000,000) is sufficient to operate our Department of Agriculture for 
OA-er 900 years, 

I once asked Secretary Wilson how much additional money he 
could find good use for with each succeeding year. After consider- 
ing it for a few moments, he replied : " If each year Congress would 
increase my appropriation by a million dollars, I could make CA'ery 
dollar of it yield the American people a hundredfold," 

SOME ACHIEArEMENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT. 

And what has been accomplished by all this work — I could not 
begin to cover it if I talked to you constantly during CA'ery session 
of this Congress. I can only touch a feAV high places and leave the 
balance to your imagination. 

You Avill a])i)reciate this more fully Avhen I tell you that the De- 
partment annually issues more than 1,100 separate and distinct pub- 
lications in Avhich are comprised more than 50,000 pages of matter. 
More than 12,000,000 copies of its various publications are issued 
annually, and considering its great bulk of more than 1,000 pages, 
the annual edition of 500,000 copies of the Department Yearbook, 
which costs $300,000, is the largest publication in the Avorld. 

It takes nearly a million dollars a year to foot the bills of the publi- 
cation department alone, in order to lay before the people the result 
of the work of the Department scientists. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 67 

THE " WASHINGTON NAVEL " ORANGE. 

From an economic point of view, probably the greatest achieve- 
ment of the Department under the old regime was the introduction 
of the seedless •' Washington Navel " orange. The wife of the Ameri- 
can Consul at Bahia, Brazil, sent the Department three little orange 
trees of this variety. 

One of these was forwarded to Florida, one to California and the 
third was planted in one of the Department greenhouses at Washing- 
ton. The one sent to Florida died, the one planted in Washington 
is still thriving, while the third, planted at Kiverside Cal., has fur- 
nished all the cuttings either by first or subsequent descent for all the 
orchards of that variety in the State. 

The bulk of the California orange crop is of the navel variety, and 
last year the value of the entire crop was $23,000,000, and the rail- 
roads received $11,000,000 more for hauling it to market. 

KAFFIR CORN. 

Kaffir corn was first seen in this country at the exhibit of the 
Orange Free State at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, but it was 
not introduced until the eighties, when the Department sent samples 
to something over 1,000 correspondents. To-day Kansas, Oklahoma, 
and Texas are growing from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 acres of this prod- 
uct, the annual yield being valued at $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. 

SORGHUM. 

At an early day sorghum was introduced here from France by the 
Commissioner of Patents, who had charge of our agricultural work. 
To-day a million and a third acres yield our farms some $20,000,000. 

.'V, Y 'f. RICE. 

Some years ago the Department established a station on the Gulf 
coast and conducted some rice experiments in Louisiana and Texas. 
As a result a large amount of capital was invested in the industry, 
constructing great irrigation works and planting vast areas of low 
land to rice. 

The industry moved on apace, but was confronted with one great 
drawback. From a barrel of rice (110 pounds) only 40 pounds of 
head rice (or 36 per cent) could be secured, the balance of the kernels 
being broken in the threshing and handling. 

The rice growers appealed to the Department for assistance and in 
1898 Doctor Knapp was sent to China and Japan to study the ques- 
tion at first hands and secure a seed rice which would obviate the dif- 
ficulty. Doctor Knapp spent many months in the rice-growing dis- 
tricts of China and Japan and brought back a quantity of many 
varieties of seed. 

Result — Louisiana and Texas now annually produce four to five 
million barrels of rice, largely a short kernel, Japanese variety, and 
instead of a breakage of 64 per cent of the kernels in the threshing 
the breakage is but 19 per cent. 



68 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

BULBS. 

We annually import $1,000,000 worth of bulbs, mostly from Hol- 
land. The Secretary concluded that our farmers instead of the 
Dutchman ought to have this money. 

He sent his scientists out to discover where w^e could best produce 
them. In the State of Washington they found ideal soil and climatic 
conditions and began their experiments. Success crowned their 
efforts- 
Last spring I saw at the Department most gorgeous crocuses, daf- 
fodils, tulips, hyacinths, jonquils, and lillies, all produced from State 
of Washington bulbs, and the Department claims that in many cases 
the quality is even superior to any of the bulbs which can be secured 
in Europe. 

CAMPHOR. 

In most smokeless powders, camphor is a necessary ingredient. 
The camphor of commerce comes almost exclusively from the island 
of Formosa, and the island of Formosa is owned by Japan. Look- 
ing into the future, it would seem to be desirable that, if possible, we 
produce our camphor at home. 

The Department is at present carrying on experimental camphor 
work in Florida and Texas. In the latter State they have several 
hundred trees already growing, with several thousand more ready 
to put into the field. 

In Florida it has 50 acres to be occupied by trees from seeds de- 
rived from various sources in order to secure a product of the highest 
camphor content. A distilling plant on a small commercial scale will 
test apparatus being speciall}^ devised by the Department, some of 
which has already stood the test so well as to seem to justify patent- 
ing. While the experiments are confined to two States, there seems 
every reason to believe that camphor will do well in the Gulf strip 
where the temperature does not fall re^rularly or for any considerable 
time beloAv 15° or 20° F. 

If this experiment turns out as expected, not only -will $600,000 
a year be kept at home, but an important military article will be at 
our command, instead of being subject to the will of a foreign and 
perhaps hostile nation. 

TEA. 

AVe annually import about 100,000,000 pounds of tea, for which we 
send to the ()rient, $14,500,000, the average import price being 14^ 
cents per pound. 

It might almost be said that no one ever dreamed that even a poor 
grade of tea could be produced in the United States. But Secretary 
Wilson thought otherwise. After a most careful investigation he 
established an experimental tea station in South Carolina, the De- 
partment furnishing the scientists to aid private capital in operating 
two tea farms. 

Last year these two farms produced 26,000 pounds of tea, which 
sold at 60 to 80 cents per pound at retail, and netted the producer 30 
to 40 cents per pound, or tAvo to three times the average price paid for 
imported tea. 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 69 

Experts declare that the South Carolina tea is equal to the most 
delicate and finest teas which come to this country, and it took the 
gold medal at the Paris Exposition. 

The production at home of all the tea we consume hinges on the 
question of labor and the Secretary expects that some day thousands 
and tens of thousands of our little pickaninnies will be engaged in 
j)icking tea leaves. 

HOPS. 

A few years ago disease attacked the x\merican hop plants and it 
became necessary to secure a new stock or abandon hop growing. 
An expert was dispatched to Bohemia with instructions to secure 
10,000 hop plants. 

After making a careful study of Bohemia hop culture, the expert 
arranged for the shipment of the requisite number. AVlien the Bo- 
hemian authorities learned what was about to take place they refused 
to allow the plants to be shipped, and the Department expert returned 
to Washington. But it was imperative that we have those plants and 
back the expert was sent, with instructions to pick up hop plants in 
small quantities wherever he could procure them, have them packed 
immediately, go with them to the express office, and see that they 
were shipped. He was instructed to follow up this procedure until 
he had shipped 10,000 plants. When he had shipped 8,000 he cabled 
that he could secure no more plants. The reply was that we must 
have at least 10.000, and he must get them. In other hop-growing 
districts he met with unexpected success, and when he had forwarded 
20,000 plants was allowed to return. 

We are still growing hops. Our annual production of 40,000,000 
to 50,000,000 pounds yields the American farmer from $4,000,000 to 
$5,000,000. 

DATES. 

We annually send abroad over $500,000 for the purchase of dates, 
and within one year from the time he accepted the fortfolio of agri- 
culture Secretary Wilson had set the machinery in motion whereby 
Arizona and California could be presented witli a new source of 
revenue. 

The agricultural explorers of the Department have since explored 
all the gTeat date regions of the world. They have penetrated to the 
oases of the Sahara. They have gone up the Suez Canal ; have made 
trips up the Persian Gulf and along the Tigris Eiver; into Beluchi- 
stan and throughout the coastal regions of Arabia. They have 
brought back thousands of date palms by pulling them across the 
desert on camel backs and shipping them by steamers to this countrv% 
many of these palms being presents from the shieks of Arabia and 
Algeria. 

Most of these date palms are growing in Arizona and southern 
California, and some of them direct from the Sahara have fruited in 
this country two years after their arrival. Enough of the imported 
varieties have fruited to prove conclusively that good dates can be 
grown in the Southwest, the result being of such a character that the 
demands for seeding dates is greater than the Department has been 
able to supply. 



70 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Private enterprise has now taken the matter up, a large number of 
dat_e gardens are being planted, and we will soon be producing instead 
of importing our dates. 

RESEEDING THE "WESTERN RANGES. 

The reseeding of our great Western stock ranges has given satis- 
factory results, particularly on the moist mountain meadows, where 
the Department has introduced timothy, redtop, red clover, white 
clover, and blue grass. It can be safely said that the seeding of these 
tame grasses will at least double the carrying capacity of the pastures 
and annually add millions and tens of millions of dollars to the value 
of our live-stock output. 

ALFALFA INTRODUCTIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS. 

The great importance and widespread popularity of alfalfa is a 
matter of common knowledge. This crop is the foundation of agri- 
culture in all the irrigated regions west of the one-hundredth merid- 
ian. Without it profitable farming in this area would scarcely be 
possible, and through the securing by selection and introduction of 
drought-resistant strains it is rapidly becoming an important factor 
even in the dry farming of the great plains and transmountain areas. 
Indeed, there is not a State in the Union in which some examples of 
successful alfalfa culture can not be found. 

The introduction of new varieties is of the utmost interest. The 
Department of Agriculture began this work during the nineties, when 
the now widely advertised Turkestan alfalfa was sent in by one of its 
explorers. Since that time this work of introduction has been con- 
tinued by means of agricultural explorers, through our diplomatic 
representatives in foreign countries, and through correspondence 
with missionaries and other interested parties throughout the world. 

A new variety has been secured from Peru, which is grown through- 
out the high table-lands of the Andes, suitable only for cultivation 
under irrigation in the mild climate of our extreme SoutliAvest. where 
it promises to yield from one to two crops more than ordinary alfalfa. 

A hardy, yellow-flowered form from the dry steppes of western 
Siberia, where the mercury sometimes freezes without snow, suitable 
for the agriculture of our northern prairie region, was one of the 
results of the exploration of 1906. An Arabian form for use in mild 
climates, similar to the Peruvian or Andean form already mentioned, 
has also been secured. In addition, alkali resistant types from the 
deserts of Asia Minor and northern Africa. A cold resistant strain 
from the i)lnins of noi-thern Mongolia and a form from some of the 
oases of the Sahara, able to thrive under higher temperatures than 
will the one commonly grown, have been secured in this work. 

As soon as these new introductions are received they are turned 
over to the experts of the Department and investigations are imme- 
diately instituted to determine the particular climatic environments, 
soils, methods of cultivation, etc.. also wliy they succeed or why they 
fail. An advance knowledge of these facts prevents thousands of 
dollars of loss annually to farmers, through attempts to cultivate 
under unsuitable conditions new and imperfectly understood varie- 
ties. It furthermore prevents the setbacks which invariably result 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 

from the failures usually attending the introduction of new and little 
known crops. 

PUKE FOOD AND DRUG ACT. 

The carrying out of the provisions of our recently enacted pure 
food and drug act is a neAv burden as well as honor to the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, where it comes under the direct supervision of 
that veteran, world-famous chemist, Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief 
of the Bureau of Chemistry. Doctor Wiley could interest you for 
hours talking on this intricate work, but time permits only an allu- 
sion to it. 

Already nearly twenty chemical laboratories have been established 
in as many cities scattered throughout the land. In these laboratories 
over 100 expert chemists are engaged in examining and testing sam- 
ples of imported or interstate commerce products, with a view both as 
to the contents and branding of the packages. 

Over forty inspectors are engaged in visiting factories, inspecting 
raw materials, sanitary conditions, and procuring samples from 
manufacturers and dealers and sending them to the nearest labora- 
tory for analysis. 

In Washington it requires over fifty clerks to attend to the details 
of this work, which is conferring blessings upon every man, woman, 
and child in the country. 

STATE EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 

The annual appropriation bill of the Department carries an appro- 
priation for the experiment stations of all the States, where the Fed- 
eral scientists work in conjunction wath the State scientists. 

At these stations the work covers a vast range of subjects, but I 
will only allude briefly to live stock. At the Fort Collins, Colo., sta- 
tion they are at work on the breeding of American carriage horses. 
In Vermont they are breeding the famous Morgan horse: in Wyo- 
ming a type of sheep suitable to range conditions; in Minnesota a 
milking shorthorn, while in Maine they are at work developing new 
and better breeds of poultry. 

SEED ADULTERATION. 

No more despicable form of adulteration exists than seed adultera- 
tion, where the loss to the purchaser not only represents the value of 
the seed, but the cost of cultivation, and the season's loss of the use of 
the land. 

I know of a case not a hundred miles from here where a widow w^o- 
man sowed several acres of grass and the seed proved to be only weed 
seed. In the seed-testing laboratory of the Department of Agricul- 
ture I have seen samples of commercial alfalfa and clover and other 
seeds separated from the weed seed, where the weed seed formed by 
far the greater portion of the sample. 

The Department gives special attention to the examination of the 
quality, germinating power, and purity of vegetable, flower, forage, 
and grass seeds and its campaign against the adulteration of both 
domestic and imported seeds has resulted in saving our farmers an 
almost endless amount of money and effort. 



72 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Means to prevent absolutely this heinous offense is now undei' con- 
sideration and the reliable seedsmen of the country are behind the 
movement. 

PESTS AND BLIGHTS. 

It is as important that pests and blights be eradicated, as it is 
that new plants be introduced, and the number which have been 
checked or eradicated by the Department is legion. It is safe to say 
that our farmers are being saved far more than $100,000,000 a year 
as a result of this class of work alone. 

The work of the Department in inducing the apple farmers to use 
arsenical sprays against the coddling moth is saving them $20,000,000 
annually. 

The San Jose scale which at one time threatened to eliminate not 
only our fruit trees, but our shade trees as well, has been practically 
eradicated by the use of the lime-salt-sulphur spra}^ so extensively 
used by the advice of the Department. 

The cotton boll weevil, which causes an annual loss of $25,000,000 
is being controlled wherever the recommendations of the Department 
are adopted; and the cotton worm, which once caused such havoc, is 
virtually a thing of the past. 

I once was present when a delegation of Massachusetts cranberry 
growers appealed to the Secretary for help. A blight had stricken 
their plants. One of the delegation had lost a $4,000 crop, another 
$6,000, and another $12,000, while numerous others had suffered 
lesser losses. 

The Department's annual appropriation bill was then pending at 
the east end of the Capitol. 

The Secretary assured them that the Dex3artment could, and would 
gladly assist them, but that everything depended upon the size of 
his pending appropriation bill. He suggested that if the Massa- 
chusetts Senators and Congressmen had enough influence with their 
fellow-members to induce them to grant what he was asking for, 
the aid of the Department was certain. Those cranberry growers 
took the hint, boarded the first car for the Capitol, and they did not 
leave Washington until the entire Massachusetts delegation had been 
pledged not only to vote for, but to Avork for the bill. 

The Secretary got his appropriation, his scientists got busy, and 
the cranberry blight was eradicated. 

SKKIJ AND I'r.AXr INTUODITCTION. 

One of the most interesting as well as important classes of work 
of the Department is that which is conducted by the Office of Seed 
and Plant Introduction and Distribution, under which the foreign 
explorations are conducted. The office was established early in 181>8 
and is part of the Bureau of Plant industry over which Doctor 
Galloway so ably presides. Since its establishment there have been 
introduciMl tlirough this office exactly 21,.')31 plant shi])ments. These 
thousands of new introductions vary in qnnntilies from a single seed 
to several tons of seeds; from a single cutting to large shipments of 
living plants. 

The range of crops covered is remarkiible--from new \arieties of 
oats for Alaska to East Indian manaos for Porto Eico, Hawaii, and 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 73 

Florida. Practically every condition of climate and soil in the world 
can be duplicated in the United States and its possessions, and the 
introductions of the last few years have covered this whole range of 
climate. Since January 1, 1904 — that is, during the last four years — 
exactly 11,635 numbers have been added to our inventory of newly 
introduced things. 

At the present time the Department has in China an agricultural 
explorer who has been there nearly three years. He has covered 
thousands of miles of territory; has visited the principal places of 
interest agriculturally in Manchuria, southern Siberia, and northern 
China; has twice faced death, once among the Chinese and once 
among the Cossacks, and has sent in over 1,000 shipments of seeds 
and scions. Among the things secured by Mr. Frank Meyer are a 
hardy persimmon, which will probably thrive in the New England 
States; dry land rices, new varieties of soy beans, drought resisting 
alfalfa, valuable varieties of Chinese pears, peaches, plums, quinces, 
apricots, cherries, pistaches, grapes, and many new and valuable orna- 
mental shrubs and trees. 

Among the things which are being sought for in foreign countries at 
the present time are the hardy bamboos of the Orient: new varieties 
of barley; the best cork oaks in order to start the cork oak industry 
in this country; better varieties of hemp for the Kentucky hemp 
growers; East Indian mangos for the Florida mango growers, mat- 
ting plants from different parts of the world to stimulate the pro- 
duction of a supply for our matting manufacturers; Avet land crops 
for the south, such as the yautias. and taros of the Orient; wild 
apples, wild asparagus, wild celery, and other wild plants for the 
use of the many hundreds who are engaged in the breeding of our 
cultivated crops and who desire new materials of a wilder character 
for their breeding experiments. 

BEET SUGAR. 

Four months after James Wilson became Secretary of Agriculture. 
Congress passed a tariff bill, the sugar schedule of which was devised 
for the express purpose of encouraging the production of sugar from 
American grown beets. 

For many years one of Mr. Wilson's hobbies had been that the 
American farmer was entitled to and should receive the $100,000,000. 
which we were annually sending abroad for sugar, a product which 
he was perfectly capable of prodiicing. 

At that time six strue:gling beet sugar factories were in existence 
and were paying the farmers between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 an- 
nually for their beets. The new Secretary secured a special item in 
his appropriation bill allowing him money for sugar investigations 
and experiments. Doctor Wiley was as much of a beet sugar enthus- 
iast as was the Secretary, and the Bureau of Chemistry, the' "Bureau 
of Plant Industry, the Bureau of Soils, as well as other bureaus 
immediately took the fever. Different varieties of seed were im- 
ported from all the seed growing districts of Europe and thoroughly 
tested for vitality, germination, etc. Bulletins of instructions to 
farmers were issued, showing how to produce the crop and outlining 
its advantages. Vast quantities of colored maps were issued showing 



74 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the theoretical thermal belt of the United States in which beets could 
be grown. 

Mr. Saylor, one of the Secretary's most valued and astute friends, 
was induced to travel about the United States from ocean to ocean as 
well as in Porto Rico, Cuba and Hawaii, gathering information con- 
cerning the sugar industry and its progress in order that an annual 
report could be published on this subject. 

Such a demand grew up for these reports that one year Congress 
ordered 120,000 copies printed, and from the first year of the Secre- 
tary's incumbency a fresh report has appeared annually with the 
regularity of clockwork. And what has been the measure of success? 

Instead of G beet sugar factories we now have 63. Instead of an 
investment of a couple of millions in the industry there is now in- 
vested in it nearly $100,000,000. Instead of the industry being con- 
fined to three States, it has spread out over sixteen States, running 
from New York on the east to California on the west and last year 
the farmers of the United States received over $22,000,000 for their 
crop of sugar beets. 

SINGLE GERM SUGAR BEET SEED. 

There is nothing '' hide bound " about the Department of Agri- 
culture. Its work" is not confined to working out the preconceived 
ideas of its head, its chiefs, or its employees, but, on the contrary, 
practical suggestions are always welcomed. 

Let me give you an illustration of this. The so-called sugar beet 
seed is in reality a cluster of seeds confined within a fibrous sub- 
stance known as a beet ball. The average number of plants which 
germinate from each ball is 3|-, and in whatever manner these balls 
may be planted there is a surplusage of beetlets which must be pulled 
up. This is laborious work, is done on hands and knees, and just at 
the opportune time. Even with the utmost care much damage is done 
to the remaining beetlets, which results in a loss of tonnage. 

I conceived the idea of breeding a beet ball which should contain 
but one seed, so that the surplus beetlets could be removed with a hoe 
and without damage to the remaining ones. I suggested the idea to 
several sugar men and' was laughed at for my pains. I suggested it 
to the Secretary of Agriculture and he jumped clear out of his chair 
and exclaimed, " Yes, we can do it, and will do it, and it will mean 
untold millions for the American sugar beet farmers." 

To make a long story short, commercial sugar beet seed contains 
from 1 to 2 per cent of balls carrying but one seed. Two thousand of 
these single germ balls were selected and planted. Two years ago last 
fall the first generation came to seed and the best plants showed 26 per 
cent of the single germ variety. Last fall the second generation 
grown from the 26 per cent plant was harvested and showed a frac- 
tion over 50 per cent single germ balls. 

To-day it is confidently expected that within from four to eight years 
we will have this single germ characteristic fixed and can then com- 
mence producing commercial seed of this kind. If we could have 
used such seed last year it would have meant more than $10,000,000 
additional money to the American farmers. When the bulletin which 
I wrote on the subject for the Department was published the Euro- 
pean beet sugar papers copied from it extensively and universally 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 75 

ridiculed the idea, but thanks to the work of our Department of Agri- 
culture we will soon distance the scientific beet seed growers of 
Europe who have been steadily engaged at it for over a century. 

SUMATRA WRAPPER TOBACCO. 

A few years ago we were annually importing about $8,000,000 
worth of high priced Sumatra wrapper tobacco. Secretary Wilson 
wondered if it were not possible to turn that money into the pockets 
of our American farmers rather than to send it to the Orient. 

He disiDatched a scientist to the island of Sumatra where he re- 
jnained nearly a year, studying soils, climatic conditions, and cultural 
methods. He not only brought back seed, but samples of their most 
productive soils. 

The next move was to discover whether or not we possessed similar 
soils, and corps of soil scientists scoured our various States in their 
search. Like soils were discovered in Connecticut, in Georgia, and 
in Florida, but of course none of these localities possessed the climate 
of Sumatra. Ergo — make it. The Department tented over an acre 
of ground in each of several localities and placed a scientist in charge 
of each station. Result — instead of as heretofore a small crop of 
inferior tobacco, worth 9 or 10 cents per^ pound, a large crop of high- 
grade wrapper was produced which brought from 30 to 60 cents per 
pound. Then private capital embarked in the industry, and last 
year 7,200 acres of this superior wrapper tobacco was grown under 
tents in Florida, Georgia, and Connecticut, and preparations are 
under way for the investment of several more million dollars in the 
industry. 

The tobacco so produced in Georgia and Florida brought an aver- 
age price of 60 cents per pound and the average returns in those 
States was $600 Der acre. Last year alone nearly $4,000,000, which 
otherwise w^ould nave been sent to the Orient for wrapper tobacco, 
went into the pockets of the tobacco farmers of these three States. 

From the Connecticut fields, the Bureau of Plant Industry has 
selected a type of wrapper which has proved to be one of the finest 
types ever produced, and this is rapidly replacing all other types in 
Georgia and Florida. 

It seems to be a question of but a very few years when the remain- 
ing $4,500,000 we now send abroad for wrappers, will go into tlie 
pockets of our American farmers instead. 

CUBAN FILLER TOBACCO. 

Having solved the wrapper tobacco question, the Secretary set 
about to solve the problem of diverting to the pockets of the Ameri- 
can farmer the $14,000,000 we annually send to the Tropics for filler 
tobacco. 

He sent his scientists to the most famous tobacco districts of Cuba 
to study conditions as they had been studied in Sumatra. On their 
return similar soils were found in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio, 
and there the Cuban seed was i:)lanted. 

Last year 6,535 acres were planted to this tobacco in the four 
States mentioned. The yield was from 550 pounds per acre in Texas 
to 1.060 pounds in Ohio. The price received by the growers was 



76 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

from 11^ cents in Ohio to 24 cents in Texas. The returns per acre 
ran from $115 in Ohio to $175 in Florida, and the industry is already- 
yielding our farmers nearly a million dollars a year. By the cour- 
tesy of the Secretary I have smoked cigars produced from selected 
Texas grown tobacco which were equal to any 25-cent or three for a 
dollar Cuban cigar you can buy. 

It should not be long before the farmers of Ohio and the Gulf 
coast will be receiving that $14,000,000 which we now send to the 
West Indies for filler tobacco. 

MACARONI WHEAT. 

Early in his work with the Department the Secretary concluded 
that it Avas folly for this great wheat-producing country to annually 
import millions of dollars worth of macaroni and vermicelli. 

To determine the exact character of the wheat used to produce it 
he had Doctor Wiley analyze several samples, and then he dispatched 
a scientist to the Mediterranean to study the whole subject and bring 
back samples of the wheat. 

There he found the manufacturing end, but not the Avheat fields. 
European manufacturers are more secretive than are those of 
America, but a chance remark led him to purchase a ticket for Rus- 
sia. After an extended search through numerous wheat-growing 
provinces he landed away up on the arid plains of the Steppes of 
Russia. Although the annual rainfall of that desolate country was 
but 10 inches, there he found the wheat fields which were supplying 
the macaroni factories of the ^Mediterranean. He shipped three car- 
loads of this wheat to Washington, and subsequently, on the deserts 
of Algeria, he discovered a similar variety which w^as being used for 
the same purpose. 

These samples of drought-resisting and rust -resisting wheat were 
distributed to farmers in our semiarid regions west of the one hun- 
dredth meridian where we had heretofore been imable to produce 
wheat. To the utter astonishment of our farmers, fields of more than 
30 bushels to the acre were secured Avith an 8-inch rainfall and the 
first year's production was used entirely for seed. 

In" 1902 we raised 200,000 bushels of it. In 1904 we produced 
10,000,000 bushels, and last year our crop of durum or macaroni wheat 
reached the enormous sum of 00,000,000 bushels, thus in a single sea- 
son pouring an additional stream of $50,000,000 gold into the pockets 
of our western farmers. 

As. soon as the production of this cereal outran the home consump- 
tion, the Department introduced it abroad. While to-day we are both 
producing and importing macaroni, the foreign demand for this 
wheat is more than sufficient to use our whole crop if it was desirable 
to let it go. 

Not only has the introduction of durum wheat enormously en- 
riched our farmers by extending the wheat-j)roducing area through- 
out large portions of the arid West Avhere other varieties will not 
thrive, but this variety has been found to be particularly resistant to 
rust and yields good crops where ordinary wheats are completely de- 
stroyed by this disease. Its use is not confined to the manufacture of 
macaroni, l)ut it is used to a considerable extent for ordinary bread 



THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 77 

flour and for blending with other flours, having in many respects 
superior qualities. 

This unheralded experiment cost but a few thousand dollars and 
already yields us enough money to add six new battle ships to our 
Xa^y every j^ear. In one or two decades the cash returns from this 
single experiment will exceed the total value of our Navy and coast 
defenses combined. And yet we cheerfully expend over $100,000,000 
a year on our Navy making an effort to impress the world with our 
greatness and warning the nations not to invade our territory, while 
many good people grumble at the miserly eight millions a year ex- 
pended on the industry which enables us to strut the seas. 

Battle ships never yet opened up great foreign markets. The ])eo- 
ple of the world buy where they can purchase the cheapest. Teaching 
our farmers how to produce abundantly and cheaply the crops which 
the world wants and must have is what opens up foreign markets; 
and if for a decade we were to reverse the order of our appropriations 
and judiciously expend a hundred millions a year on agriculture and 
eight millions on the Navy, our power, our greatness, our prosperity, 
and our happiness would be the marvel of the world. 

We rightfully boast of our inventive genius and of our marvelous 
prosperity, but in scientific agriculture, in good roads, and in internal 
waterways we are far behind most of the great nations of the world. 

"VVliile neglecting these prolific sources of national wealth we have 
expended over $500,000,000 to satisfj^ national pride and float our 
flag in the Orient. Our War Department absorbs $122,000,000 a 
year and the Navy Department a hundred millions more, while fifty 
millions is annually absorbed in running the Philippines. 

With this vast annual expenditure on external affairs and only 
eight millions for agriculture, is it not time for an awakening as to 
the far greater importance of increased expenditures on internal 
affairs where each dollar expended, instead of calling for additional 
thousands of expenditures, will mean thousands of revenue and 
wealth. 

MENACES TO AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 

As to actual and active menaces to our agricultural prosperity and 
development we have but one. With our recently acquired tropical 
possessions a new and important economic problem has appeared 
which must soon be settled. 

We annually import about $400,000,000 worth of agricultural prod- 
ucts. About one-half of these products, mostly sugar and tobacco, 
are produced in the temperate zone as well as in the Tropics, and Sec- 
retary Wilson is teaching the American farmers how to produce them 
in this western and southern country, as well as in some portions of 
the Eastern States. 

The other $200,000,000 worth are produced only in the Tropics, and 
consist of such articles as coffee, rubber, fibers, cacao, copra, indigo, 
etc., all of which grow to perfection in our island possessions. 

That grizzled old statesman. Secretary Wilson, recommends that 
we teach the people of our island possessions to produce the 
$200,000,000 worth of tropical products which we can not raise at 
home, thus helping those people without injury to our own farmers. 
But not all statesmen are as practical as James Wilson. There is a 



78 THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

small bevy of self-styled " altruistic statesmen " who, for reasons best 
known to themselves, ridicule the idea of aiding the people of our 
island possessions to produce what we are unable to produce at home. 
They insist that our island people be coaxed to produce our sugar 
and tobacco, thus robbing the American farmer of two of the most 
profitable crops which the Secretary of Agriculture has taught them 
to produce, as well as depriving them of all hope of eventually pro- 
ducing on American farms the $120,000,000 worth of sugar and 
tobacco which we still import. 

It is devoutly to be hoped that the Wilson type of statesmanship 
will prevail ; that in due course of time we will produce on the main- 
land every article we are capable of producing, and that we will 
enrich our insular possessions as well as make us more self-sustaining 
as a nation, by encouraging our insular population to produce all 
that we are unable to produce at home. 

TO ATTAIN MAXIMUM ECONOMIC RESULTS. 

As directly affecting agriculture, the natural sequence of govern- 
mental expenditures should be : First, teach the farmers what to pro- 
duce and how best to produce it. Second, by constructing and main- 
taining at least one national highway across each State, furnish an 
object lesson to our people which would result in a universal system 
of good roads throughout the States, thus affording the farmer the 
lowest cost of transportation on all his products to the nearest station 
or warehouse or wharf. Third, a complete system of inland natural 
waterways and canals, by means of which he would be able to deliver 
his export crops to tide water at a minimum freight rate. Fourth, 
deep harbors which would accommodate the merchant marine of the 
world, and then, if not enough ships are to be had to transport our 
products to the markets of the world, create a great American mer- 
chant marine by means of ship subsidies. This, gentlemen, is the 
logical sequence for economic development, not only in agriculture, 
but in the main, for our great manufacturing and mining industries 
as well. 

O 



UIDHMn I wi 



021 529 517 5 



t 




CONGRESS 



021 529 517 5 



